Preamble

The House met at a Quarter before Three of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.

Manchester Extension Bill (by Order),

Second Reading deferred till Thursday.

Public Works Facilities Scheme (Huddersfield Corporation) Bill,

Read the Third time, and passed.

Public Works Facilities Act, 1930 (Schemes),

Certificate of the Ministry of Health, under Section 1 (4) (b) of the Act, in respect of the following Bill, laid upon the Table by the Clerk of the House, namely:

Public Works Facilities Scheme (Boston Corporation).

Oral Answers to Questions — INDIA.

ARMY CHAPLAINS.

Mr. T. SMITH: 1.
asked the Secretary of State for India if the chaplains attached to the British Army in India are paid through the Army Department or through the Ecclesiastical Department of the Government of India?

The SECRETARY of STATE for INDIA (Sir Samuel Hoare): Chaplains of the Church of India, although the greater number of them minister to British troops, are not attached to the Army, and their pay is chargeable to the Ecclesiastical Department. Some chaplains of the Church of Scotland, and all Roman Catholic and Wesleyan chaplains, are attached to the Army and their pay is chargeable to Army estimates.

RETIRED BISHOPS AND CHAPLAINS (PENSIONS).

Mr. T. SMITH: 2.
asked the Secretary of State for India whether he can give a list of the retired bishops and chaplains who are at present in receipts of pensions from Indian revenues through the Ecclesiastical Department of the Government of India, with the amounts of such pensions?

Sir S. HOARE: I will send the hon. Member a list of retired bishops and chaplains drawing pensions from Indian revenues in this country together with the amounts of such pensions. A few such pensions are probably paid direct by Governments in India, but a reference to the Government of India would be necessary in order to obtain particulars.

BRITISH TROOPS, MINGALADON, BURMA (CHURCH).

Captain FULLER: 3.
asked the Secretary of State for India what is now the position as to the provision of a church for British troops stationed in Mingaladon, Burma?

Sir S. HOARE: I fear I have nothing further to add to the information I have already given to my hon. and gallant Friend, but I will inquire again if he wishes.

EARTHQUAKE (RELIEF MEASURES).

Mr. DAVID GRENFELL: 7.
asked the Secretary of State for India whether he will announce the measures taken for the relief of victims of the recent earthquake in India; whether he has a full report of the casualties and of the number of people rendered homeless in the areas affected; and whether financial assistance from this country is contemplated?

Mr. T. WILLIAMS: 8.
asked the Secretary of State for India what steps are being taken to restore the damage done by the earthquake in India; and what relief measures have been set in hand for the stricken population?

Sir S. HOARE: As I informed my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Wycombe (Sir A. Knox) last Monday, it is estimated that in British India 6,582 lives have been lost and that at least five crores of rupees will be required for relief work and the repair of material damage. I have from time to time received reports on the damage done and the measures of relief undertaken, and I communicated their substance to the Press. The Government of Bihar are seeking legislative powers to make loans on easy terms to those whose buildings have been destroyed or damaged; but, as the Provincial Government are unable from their own resources to deal with the situation, the Government of India are working out, in consultation with them, a comprehensive financial scheme under which assistance will be given from central revenues. There are on the other hand certain classes of need which offer a wide scope for private charity, and the Viceroy has opened a relief fund, subscriptions to which are being received in this country by the High Commissioner for India. I am glad to say that the Lord Mayor of London has opened a fund at the Mansion House in support of the Viceroy's Fund. The International Relief Union has also contributed £1,000.

Mr. GRENFELL: Have the Government decided to show a good example by making a grant towards this fund?

Sir S. HOARE: If my hon. Friend will read the answer, he will see that I have set out the steps which the Government are taking.

Mr. GRENFELL: I understood from the answer that the Government of India are encouraging the Provincial Government to make loans, but are the central Government in this country associating themselves with the relief?

Sir S. HOARE: The central Government in this country are doing everything in their power to encourage subscriptions to the Lord Mayor's Fund and the Viceroy's Fund, and the central Government in India are doing what they can in co-operation with the local Government.

Mr. GRENFELL: Does the right hon. Gentleman expect that this large sum of money can be found by the means suggested?

Sir S. HOARE: Yes, Sir, I think it will be found.

Mr. HANNON: Has not my right hon. Friend received an indication that all sections in this country desire to assist in relieving this disaster in India?

Sir S. HOARE: Yes, Sir. I hope that the publicity of these questions and answers will draw attention to the Lord Mayor's Fund. We shall be very glad to receive as many subscriptions as we can.

UNLICENSED ARMS.

Duchess of ATHOLL: 4.
asked the Secretary of State for India whether the steps being taken to deal with the smuggling and possession of unlicensed arms in Bengal are being supported by effective steps to prevent this smuggling and possession of unlicensed arms in other parts of India?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for INDIA (Mr. Butler): I am satisfied that the authorities in India constantly bear in mind the need for countering this dangerous activity in every possible way. As long as any arms get into unauthorised hands, we are most anxious to improve our system, and we are in fact reviewing it with this object at the present time.

TERRORISM.

Duchess of ATHOLL: 5.
asked the Secretary of State for India if he is aware
that since the new year a conspiracy trial has been in progress in Calcutta in which no less than 33 alleged terrorists from Bengal, Madras, the Punjab, the United Provinces, Burma, and the Central Provinces were being tried; whether he can inform the House of the charges brought against the accused; and if any judgments, and, is so, to what effect have been pronounced?

Mr. BUTLER: My right hon. Friend is aware that the Government of Bengal sanctioned the institution of a conspiracy case as a result of material discovered by the police in Calcutta, but he has not yet received information as to its progress.

Duchess of ATHOLL: Is my hon. Friend aware that the President of the European Association, in the original draft of the speech which he made recently when the association entertained the Viceroy, described this case as "a remarkable plot, which shows, more than in other recent cases, the increasing extent of the terrorist movement"?

Mr. BUTLER: As I informed my Noble Friend last week, the Government must pay attention to speeches as they are delivered. As regards the fact which she has disclosed, I feel sure that all the information will come to notice, and, if not, we shall ask for it.

Duchess of ATHOLL: 6.
asked the Secretary of State for India if he is aware that one of the accused in the present Madras conspiracy case, who has turned informer, has given evidence that he had learned the process of bomb manufacture from Bengal terrorist prisoners with whom he was imprisoned in Trichinopoli Gaol, having attended some 50 or 60 classes, each lasting for some two or three hours, in the State prisoners' ward where the cult of violence was taught; and whether he can assure the House that prisoners accused of terrorism will no longer be given any opportunity of imparting such instruction to prisoners not previously connected with the movement?

Mr. BUTLER: The Crown Prosecutor in this case informed the court that it was by coming into contact with certain Bengali terrorist detenus that the accused were instructed in the cult of terrorism. To avoid such dangers, a number of terrorist convicts have been transferred
to the Andamans instead of to gaols in other Provinces of British India. Terrorist detenus are normally held in concentration camps of their own. As regards terrorist prisoners in gaols in Madras, steps are being taken to arrange for their more effective segregation.

Duchess of ATHOLL: Are we to understand that the authorities in Madras regard as well founded the statements made by this informer as to the instruction in terrorist methods which he had obtained while in prison?

Mr. BUTLER: I understand that this particular case took place about two years ago.

BRAZIL (BRITISH INVESTORS).

Sir ALAN McLEAN: 9.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is aware that the default plan of the Brazilian Government deprives British investors of £16,000,000 a year due by the terms of the contracts under which the moneys were borrowed; and whether this default plan was accepted on behalf of British nationals by the flotation houses who sold Brazilian obligations to the British public or whether His Majesty's Government acquiesced in this default plan?

The SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir John Simon): The full figure for the Brazilian foreign debt service, including the service not only of bonds issued or held in this country, but also of all loans raised in other countries, is, I understand, in the nature of £24,000,000. The plan embodied in the recent Brazilian decree provides, in the first year of its operation, for a total reduction in the foreign debt service of approximately the sum mentioned by my hon. and gallant Friend, a reduction which is borne, however, by all holders of Brazilian bonds and not by British investors alone. Further, the sum of approximately £8,000,000, which is to be provided during the first year, will be increased in each successive year of the four-year period covered by the plan. As regards the second part of this question, I understand that the responsibility for the plan rests solely with the Brazilian Government. No question arose as to the acquiescence of His Majesty's Government.

IRAQ (ASSYRIAN CONCENTRATION CAMP).

Colonel WEDGWOOD: 10.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether any Englishman is in charge of the Assyrian concentration camp in Iraq; and whether he can give any information as to the present condition of those who survived the massacre?

Sir J. SIMON: Yes, Sir; the Mosul camp is, in the temporary absence of Major Thomson, under the supervision of another British subject in the service of the Iraqi Government, Major Wilson, the administrative inspector at Mosul. I have made careful inquiries regarding conditions in the camp, and I am assured that the conditions as recently as the 16th February were satisfactory.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: Is the question of the Assyrians now awaiting the decision of the League, or has the right hon. Gentleman any alternative recognising our primary responsibility in this matter?

Sir J. SIMON: As the right hon. and gallant Gentleman knows, there is a committee of the League which is dealing with the matter and we are waiting to learn what is the result.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: Is the only question before the committee of the League the question of transplanting them to Brazil?

Sir J. SIMON: I should desire notice of that question, but I believe that Brazil is the direction to which their attention has been lately directed.

AUSTRIA.

Major PROCTER: 11.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he is aware that the Trades Union Council is inviting subscriptions to a fund to help one section of the Austrian people to fight another section; and, seeing that this action may be regarded as an interference in the affairs of a friendly nation, if he will make a communication to the Austrian Government that this action by the Trades Union Council is not approved by His Majesty's Government?

Sir J. SIMON: I have no information regarding the fund referred to except
what has appeared in the Press, and I do not think that it is necessary for me to take any action on the lines suggested in the last part of the question.

Major PROCTER: Does not the Foreign Secretary think that such money should be kept within the country and used for our own unemployed?

Mr. D. GRENFELL: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Trades Union Congress has helped many deserving objects, including the Indian Earthquake Fund?

Mr. REMER: Are the principles of the Trades Union Congress peace at home and war abroad?

Mr. HANNON: Would it not be better if a question of this kind were kept off the Order Paper until the condition of Austria was settled?

Colonel WEDGWOOD: On that point of Order——

Mr. SPEAKER: It is a matter for me to decide.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: 12.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has any fresh information to give to the House about the situation in Austria?

Sir J. SIMON: There are two matters which I should briefly report to the House, though both of them are made public in to-day's Press.
First, on Saturday last, the 17th February, His Majesty's Government, together with the French and Italian Governments, agreed to the issue of a joint communiqué, the text of which is as follows:
The Austrian Government has inquired of the Governments of France, Great Britain and Italy as to their attitude with regard to the dossier which it has prepared with a view to establishing German interference in the internal affairs of Austria and which it has communicated to them.
The conversations which have taken place between the three Governments on this subject have shown that they take a common view as to the necessity of maintaining Austria's independence and integrity in accordance with the relevant treaties.
Secondly, the British Minister at Vienna, on my instructions, has been expressing to the Austrian Government our earnest hope that a policy of clemency
and appeasement will be followed with reference to the recent grave disturbances.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: Was this agreement between the British Government and the Governments of Italy and France as to supporting Austria come to before the Austrian Government perpetrated these massacres, or afterwards?

Sir J. SIMON: If my right hon. and gallant Friend's question is simply as to date, I would remind him that I had already announced to the House the view of His Majesty's Government on an earlier occasion—I think on the 13th February.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: That was before the massacres took place. What I wish to inquire is whether the view of His Majesty's Government as to the necessity of supporting Austrian independence has not been modified by the example of the way in which the Austrian Government proposes to treat the working-classes in Austria?

Sir J. SIMON: I think my right hon. and gallant Friend will see that the broad consideration whether the peace of Europe is best secured by the disturbance of Austria or not can hardly be said to have changed because of the conditions of which he speaks.

Mr. ATTLEE: Will the right hon. Gentleman make it clear to the Austrian Government that the continuance of the political and financial support given to Austria in the past will be contingent on the proper treatment of the working-classes in that country?

Sir J. SIMON: I think the hon. Gentleman really ought to recognise the fact of which I have just informed the House, and which I think he already knew, namely, that His Majesty's Government have been making representations as to clemency and appeasement in the present situation.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: Is not the preservation of liberty in Europe as important as the independence of Austria?

Mr. D. GRENFELL: 16.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will state the nature of the obligations towards the League of Nations assumed by Austria in recognition of the
financial assistance extended to her under the auspices of the League?

Sir J. SIMON: By the Protocol of 3rd October 1922, Austria undertakes, in accordance with the terms of Article 88 of the Treaty of St. Germaine, not to alienate its independence and to abstain from any negotiations or from any economic or financial engagement calculated directly or indirectly to compromise this independence.

Mr. GRENFELL: Is not the Austrian Government also under an obligation not to alienate the independence and the liberties of her own people?

FRANCE (SUBMARINES).

Mr. LAMBERT: 15.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will inquire for what defensive reason the French Government, since 11th November, 1918, has built, or is building, 80 submarines?

Mr. COCKS: On a point of Order. May I ask you, Sir, if there is any precedent for a question of this nature?

Mr. SPEAKER: Does the hon. Member refer to this question?

Mr. COCKS: Are Members allowed to ask questions as to why certain Powers are defending themselves, as they have a perfect right to do?

Mr. SPEAKER: With agreements that are now made on these questions, it is difficult to say whether the Government is responsible or not.

Sir J. SIMON: I hardly think it would be proper for His Majesty's Government to adopt my right hon. Friend's suggestion.

Mr. LAMBERT: Cannot these submarines in certain eventualities be a formidable menace to the free flow of commerce in the Channel?

SAAR TERRITORY (PLEBISCITE).

Mr. HANNON: 17.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he can make a statement on the proceedings of the League Committee of Three entrusted by the Council of the League of Nations with the preparation of plans for the conduct of the plebiscite of the Saar?

Sir J. SIMON: I have no information regarding the proceedings of the committee referred to by my hon. Friend, though I understand that it met in Geneva on 15th February.

Mr. HANNON: Will the Government see, as far as possible, that no undue pressure is brought to bear upon any elector in the Saar to make him vote in a particular way during the progress of the plebiscite?

Sir J. SIMON: The hon. Member will see that the matter that he has just mentioned is manifestly one that is being considered by this very Committee.

Oral Answers to Questions — AGRICULTURE.

EGGS.

Sir PERCY HURD: 18.
asked the Minister of Agriculture whether, in view of the greatly increased home supplies of eggs available this spring and the present low level of prices, he can state what action the Government will take to protect the home producer until such time as the Reorganisation Commission has presented its report?

The MINISTER of AGRICULTURE (Mr. Elliot): The Market Supply Committee has been asked to report on the situation in the egg market. I anticipate that their report will be submitted very shortly, when it will receive immediate consideration. Meanwhile, I am not in a position to make a statement.

ALLOTMENTS (UNEMPLOYED PERSONS).

Mr. HALL-CAINE: 19.
asked the Minister of Agriculture whether the Government intends to use the Land Utilisation Act for the purpose of providing better allotment facilities for the Unemployed; and, if so, on what lines?

Mr. ELLIOT: The position in this matter remains as indicated in the reply I gave on 27th November last to a question on the subject by the hon. Member for East Birkenhead (Mr. White) of which I am sending my hon. Friend a copy.

MEAT IMPORTS.

Mr. HERBERT WILLIAMS: 20.
asked the Minister of Agriculture if, having regard to the fact that the retained imports of beef, veal, mutton, and lamb, in
January 1934, were in weight 13 per cent. greater than those of January, 1933, and 1½ per cent. greater than those of January, 1932, he can now state when he proposes to put into effective operative the restrictive scheme he announced in the House of Commons in November, 1932?

Mr. ELLIOT: Gross imports from foreign sources in January this year were lower than in January, 1932, and January, 1933, by about 19 and 5 per cent. respectively. The increases in retained imports from all sources of beef, veal, mutton and lamb compared with the corresponding months of 1932 and 1933, are entirely attributable to larger supplies from Empire countries. The programmes announced by me in the House of Commons in 1932 and on subsequent occasions have, of course, been subject to undertakings, such as the Ottawa Agreements, then existing.

Mr. WILLIAMS: When is there going to be a less supply coming on to the home market?

Mr. ELLIOT: I have answered the question on the Paper. Any restriction can only be undertaken in observance of our existing agreements.

CONSUMERS' COMMITTEE.

Mr. D. GRENFELL: 21.
asked the Minister of Agriculture whether the Consumers' Council for England and Wales has been appointed; and whether any direct representative of Wales has been included?

Mr. ELLIOT: I am sending the hon. Member a list of the members of this Committee, which was appointed on 8th December 1933. The members were not selected to represent particular areas, but one member is Sir Charles Bird, C.B.E., J.P., of Cardiff, resident in Wales.

Mr. GRENFELL: Has the right hon. Gentleman given any consideration to the claim of the Principality on the ground of separate language?

Mr. ELLIOT: Every representative must be intelligible to the other members of the Committee.

Mr. GRENFELL: Have not the people of the Principality an advantage over others in that respect?

Mr. ELLIOT: I am not sure that that advantage is not shared by the gentleman who is representing them.

IMPORTED BARLEY.

Mr. HASLAM: 22.
asked the Minister of Agriculture whether he is aware of the considerable increase in the imports of foreign barley into this country, particularly from Russia, during January, 1934, as compared with the corresponding month in 1933; whether the Government is prepared to take steps to preserve the British barley grower from the effects of this foreign dumping and to bring barley within the scope of the Marketing Acts, and to regulate imports?

Mr. ELLIOT: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. I would remind my hon. Friend, however, that during the present cereal year the price of home-grown barley has been considerably higher than during the last few years. No action by the Government is required to bring barley within the scope of the Agricultural Marketing Acts. The initiative in this matter rests with the producers.

Mr. R. W. SMITH: Is the right hon. Gentleman considering the question of pearl barley, about which he gave an undertaking at Aberdeen a month ago?

Mr. ELLIOT: That does not arise out of the question.

Mr. HASLAM: Are the Government taking into consideration the very hard times, owing to the depression, that the barley growers have had?

PIG MARKETING BOARD.

Mr. HALL-CAINE: 23.
asked the Minister of Agriculture if he can make any statement as to the reasons for which the resignation of the chairman of the Pig Marketing Board has been requested?

Mr. ELLIOT: No, Sir. This is a question which I regard as being within the province of the Board.

MILK MARKETING SCHEME.

Mr. LEWIS: 24.
asked the Minister of Agriculture whether his attention has been called to the fact that under the milk marketing scheme co-operative societies are able to supply the public with milk more cheaply than other re-
tailers; and what steps he proposes to take to ensure that all retailers in any given district are placed on the same footing with regard to the selling price of milk?

Mr. ELLIOT: As I indicated in the reply I gave on 31st January to a question by my hon. Friend the Member for Barnstaple (Sir B. Peto) under the contract prescribed by the Milk Marketing Board for the period 6th October, 1933, to 31st March, 1934, retailers, other than co-operative societies, may allow to their customers dividends or discounts on retail sales of milk, provided that such dividends or discounts are paid not oftener than once in every three months and that they do not exceed the rate per pound actually paid on retail sales of milk by any co-operative society operating in the district. My hon. Friend will see, therefore, that ordinary retailers are placed on the same footing as co-operative societies.

Lieut.-Colonel MacANDREW: Are the ordinary retailers in Scotland to be in the same advantageous position as in England?

Mr. ELLIOT: That question should be addressed to the Secretary of State.

Mr. PALING: Are these questions asked in order to bring co-operative prices up or retailers' prices down?

Mr. LAMBERT: 26.
asked the Minister of Agriculture if he can yet, or when he will be able to, announce the policy of the Government restricting the import of oversea milk products so as to secure for the home producer a living return for labour?

Mr. ELLIOT: I am at present unable to add to the answers I gave my right hon. Friend on 5th and 12th February.

Mr. LAMBERT: When will the right hon. Gentleman be in a position to answer?

Mr. ELLIOT: I am sure the right hon. Gentleman would not wish me to prophesy, but, as he has already put the question down twice, if he repeats it on Monday I hope to give him the same answer then.

Mr. ATTLEE: Is the right hon. Gentleman consulting with the Minister of Health?

Mr. GLOSSOP: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that a detrimental effect is being produced on the market for cows due to calve in the spring

Mr. ELLIOT: I am aware of the difficulties arising under the present system, but we are taking all these matters into active review.

Mr. LAMBERT: Can the right hon. Gentleman give any reason why the Government decision is delayed, considering that unless some decision is arrived at the whole marketing scheme may collapse?

Mr. ELLIOT: The importance of the statement which my right hon. Friend has just made indicates the necessity of taking measures which really will avert such a danger. These measures cannot be rashly taken, and they will require full consideration before they are announced in the House.

BACON PIGS (CONTRACTS).

Mr. DREWE: 25.
asked the Minister of Agriculture whether he is aware that farmers are experiencing difficulty in having to fill up their contract forms for bacon pigs for so long a period as 12 months; and whether he will consider making two periods of six months each?

Mr. ELLIOT: I recognise that a long-term contract is an innovation in the bacon-pig industry, but I believe that farmers generally are not experiencing insuperable difficulty in contracting for the 10 months' period beginning 1st March next recently prescribed by the Pigs Marketing Board. I would remind my hon. Friend that the Lane Fox Commission, after consultation with producers, strongly recommended a long-term contract as being conducive to the orderly expansion of the industry.

Mr. DREWE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that farmers are adopting the policy of underestimating future profits, and will he take that into consideration in forming his future quota policy?

Mr. ELLIOT: I am afraid I must be guided by the actual contracts that are registered. I hope my hon. Friend will impress upon the producers in his area the necessity of actually entering into contracts if they wish the expansion of the industry to be maintained.

Mr. DREWE: Is my right hon. Friend aware that it is difficult to contract for pigs that are not yet born?

POST OFFICE (ACCIDENT RISKS).

Mr. COCKS: 28.
asked the Postmaster-General whether he is aware that persons injured by Post Office vehicles are unable to obtain compensation owing to the fact that the drivers are not insured against third party risks; and whether he will take steps to correct this anomaly?

The POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Sir Kingsley Wood): As stated in the reply to the hon. Member for Plaistow (Mr. Thorne) on the 14th instant, it is the practice of my Department in the event of an accident to accept the same degree of liability in respect of a claim for civil damages as is imposed on a private employer.

Mr. COCKS: Has not the attention of the right hon. Gentleman been drawn to the accident to one of these persons, who states that she will not receive compensation through being knocked down by one of the vehicles of the right hon. Gentleman?

Sir K. WOOD: Yes, Sir. I looked into that matter personally, and it was not on account of the fact that the Post Office was not insured that the lady in question did not receive any compensation.

HOUSE OF COMMONS (REFRESHMENT DEPARTMENT).

Sir ROBERT HAMILTON: 30.
asked the hon. Baronet the Member for Ipswich, as Chairman of the Kitchen Committee, if hon. Members may be provided with the outlines of the pension scheme for servants to which they have been invited to contribute?

Sir JOHN GANZONI: The Kitchen Committee hope, if the yield of the levy permits, to pay a weekly pension to each of the 34 permanent servants who may retire at or after the age of 65.

SCOTLAND (DEER).

Mr. HENDERSON STEWART: 31.
asked the Secretary of State for Scotland
if he can now say when and in what form the promised legislation in regard to damage by deer will be introduced?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for SCOTLAND (Mr. Skelton): My right hon. Friend regrets that he is not yet in a position to give the information desired.

Oral Answers to Questions — UNEMPLOYMENT.

ASSISTANCE BOARD (EXPENDITURE).

Mr. GRAHAM WHITE: 33.
asked the Minister of Labour if any estimate has been prepared of the expenditure of the Unemployment Assistance Board in respect of allowances in the first year of its operation?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of LABOUR (Mr. R. S. Hudson): No, Sir; it is not possible to frame an estimate of the expenditure of the Unemployment Assistance Board, in respect of allowances without more knowledge of the number of applicants on the appointed days and in advance of the regulations for the determination and assessment of needs of applicants for assistance which, under Part II of the Unemployment Bill now before the House, are to be submitted to and approved by both Houses of Parliament. In this connection, I should like to refer the hon. Member to paragraphs 15 and 18 of the Financial Memorandum which accompanied the Bill.

Mr. D. GRENFELL: Will the hon. Gentleman inform the House whether it is anticipated that the assistance will be more, or less, generous than was given under the Public Assistance Committee?

Mr. HUDSON: It will very largely depend upon the regulations issued by the board.

UNEMPLOYMENT FUND.

Mr. H. WILLIAMS: 34.
asked the Minister of Labour what would be the reduction in income of the Unemployment Insurance Fund if the rates of contribution were restored to those which prevailed prior to the Economy Act of 1931?

Mr. HUDSON: The reduction in the income of the Unemployment Fund if the rates of contributions were reduced to those in operation prior to October, 1931, would, on the basis of finance assumed
for the Unemployment Bill, amount to about £15,900,000.

Mr. WILLIAMS: Will my hon. Friend bear in mind the claims of those who are paying so heavily when the committee increase the rates of benefit?

Mr. HUDSON: That will be one of the considerations which, no doubt, the Statutory Committee will have in mind.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRADE AND COMMERCE.

RUBBER RESTRICTION SCHEME.

Lieutenant-Colonel MacANDREW: 35.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he can make any statement with regard to the negotiations for rubber restriction?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for DOMINION AFFAIRS (Mr. Malcolm MacDonald): I am replying on behalf of my right hon. Friend. No, Sir. The communiqué issued on the joint authority of His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands Government on the 13th of February, which stated that reports to the effect that agreement had been reached for the regulation of rubber supplies were wholly inaccurate, represents the position. This communiqué was issued to contradict various unauthorised reports which appeared likely to mislead the public.

ST. GERMAIN-EN-LAYE TREATY.

Captain FULLER (for Mr. LEES-JONES): 32.
asked the President of the Board of Trade if he is aware that the British Government in 1930 notified the signatory countries to the St. Germain-en-Laye Treaty of its willingness to continue that treaty for a further period of five years, and asked the signatory countries to signify their willingness to do likewise, so obviating the necessity for a formal meeting; which of the countries signified their assent; and on what dates such assents were received by the British Government?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Dr. Burgin): In 1930, when in accordance with Article 15 of the Convention a conference of the signatory Powers to introduce any necessary modifications fell due, His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom, after consultation with His Majesty's Govern-
ments in the Dominions suggested that a meeting should be held in 1935. The Portuguese Government signified their willingness to accept this proposal on the 29th July, 1930, and the Japanese Government on the 12th August, 1930. It was informally understood that the Belgian Government were prepared to agree to the proposal. No other replies were received.

Oral Answers to Questions — GERMANY.

PROPAGANDA.

Mr. MABANE: 36.
asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what information is in his possession regarding the dissemination of seditious propaganda in this country by Herr Otto Bene, a German subject, lately residing in Westbourne Terrace, London?

The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Sir John Gilmour): According to my information, the propaganda from this source cannot be regarded as seditious in character. If my hon. Friend has any information to the contrary effect, I should be glad to consider it.

Mr. MABANE: Is the propaganda Nazi propaganda?

Colonel WEDGWOOD: What sort of propaganda is it? Is it Nazi, or is it Fascist?

BRITISH INVESTORS.

Mr. MOLSON: 40.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will, preparatory to the coming discussions on the German transfer moratorium, request the German Government to furnish an estimate of the nominal amount of German-owned capital invested outside Germany and, similarly, of foreign securities owned in Germany by German nationals?

The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Hore-Belisha): According to an estimate by the German Statistical Office, published in March, 1933, the income arising from the capital and investments referred to in the question during the year 1932 was 200 million reichsmarks. I think it may be assumed that any later estimate which may be available will be furnished to the long-term creditors for the purpose of the meeting which is to be held in April next.

Mr. MOREING: 41.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will suggest to the German Government that any re-arrangement of the transfer moratorium should provide for the abolition of the various separate exchange control regulations; that there should be only one creditor's account for the blocked claims of the foreign creditors of Germany; and that an international commission should arrange the sale of blocked marks in the creditor's account?

Mr. REMER: 42.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will intimate to the German Government that no transfer moratorium scheme which varies the contractual Sinking Fund obligations will be acceptable to British nationals unless an end is put to the re-purchase by German borrowers of German loans at prices less than issue prices by means of foreign exchange arising from the sale of German exports?

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: As was announced in the communiqué published on the 1st February, it is proposed to convene early in April a meeting of all long-term and medium-term creditors of Germany. It will be for the representatives of the British creditors to consider what specific proposals to bring forward at this meeting, and I am taking steps to bring both my hon. Friends' suggestions to their notice.

HOME OFFICE MUSEUM.

Commander MARSDEN: 37.
asked the Home Secretary if he is aware that the existence of the Home Office Museum is not generally known; that the word museum is a misomer; and what steps he proposes to take to advertise more widely the services which this institution can render to industry?

Sir J. GILMOUR: Much has been done to bring the object and character of this valuable institution to the notice both of the public generally and of those to whom it is likely to be of special interest and use. I agree, however, with my hon. and gallant Friend that it ought to be more widely known than it is, and that with greater publicity the services it already renders to industry could be greatly increased. I will consider what further steps can be taken within the resources at our disposal and I should welcome any suggestion which any Member
of the House may have to offer. The institution is a permanent exhibition of up-to-date practical methods for promoting the safety, health and welfare of workpeople, particularly in factories; and if any happier title than "Industrial Museum" can be suggested, I shall be glad to consider it.

Sir ARTHUR MICHAEL SAMUEL: Will my right hon. Friend consider a suggestion to show some of those exhibits at the British Industries Fair, such, for instance, as those for the protection of human life in factories?

CRIME (RAIDS AND ROBBERIES).

Sir WILLIAM DAVISON: 38.
asked the Home Secretary how many smash-and-grab raids or robberies with violence have occurred in the Metropolitan Police Area during the past three months; and in how many cases have the perpetrators of the robbery, or attempted robbery, been arrested?

Sir J. GILMOUR: In the three months ended 31st January 14 cases of the kind described as "smash and grab" raids were reported to the police in the Metropolitan Police District and 10 arrests were made in connection with eight of these crimes. In the same period there were 48 cases reported of robbery with violence or assaults with intent to rob, and in respect of 19 of these crimes, 36 arrests were made.

Sir W. DAVISON: Is the right hon. Gentleman satisfied as to the methods that are being adopted, and also the progress that is being made towards stopping these outrages on the public?

Sir J. GILMOUR: We are doing everything we can, and, while nobody can be satisfied with any system, I think that we are making progress.

Sir W. DAVISON: 39.
asked the Home Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been called to the gallantry of taximeter-cab driver William Tyrrell, who deliberately drove his taximeter-cab into a large saloon car in which three bandits were escaping after an attempted robbery at a jeweller's shop in Duke Street, St. James's, on 13th February, and also assisted to arrest one of the raiders at
considerable personal risk; whether compensation will be paid to Mr. Tyrrell in respect of the damage done to his taximeter-cab; and what further recognition is proposed to be given him for the public spirit he showed in securing the capture of two of the raiders?

Sir J. GILMOUR: Yes, Sir. I should like to say how much I appreciate Mr. Tyrrell's public-spirited action. The Commissioner of Police has seen him this morning and thanked him personally for what he did. With regard to the last part of the question, the matter is under consideration, but my hon. Friend may rest assured that Mr. Tyrrell will be fully reimbursed for any loss he may have suffered by reason of the damage to his cab.

Sir W. DAVISON: Does the right hon. Gentleman recognise that not only did this gallant man risk his life, but he also endangered his livelihood? Does he realise that the insurance policy on his motor will not apply, as it was a voluntary act?

Sir J. GILMOUR: Every circumstance will be taken into consideration.

Mr. HANNON: Cannot some general indication of the Home Office attitude towards gallantry of this kind be given to the public, so that men who risk their lives would be certain of receiving some recognition and reward?

Sir J. GILMOUR: I think the answer to the question will leave no doubt in the public mind.

REICHSTAG FIRE TRIAL (BULGARIAN PRISONERS).

Mr. HALL-CAINE: 13.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will arrange that an intimation be given at an early date to the effect that a visa enabling them to enter Great Britain will be granted, if desired, to the Bulgarian prisoners recently acquitted in the Reichstag trial?

Sir J. SIMON: So far as I am aware, no application has been made by these persons for facilities to come to this country.

Mr. MAXTON: Having regard to all the circumstances of this case, would it not be decent to make it known that these facilities will be available?

Sir J. SIMON: I hardly think I am called upon to make that sort of proclamation. If the application were made, it would have to be carefully considered in the light of all the information available.

BROADCASTING (FOREIGN LEGION DESERTER).

Mr. BROCKLEBANK (for Brigadier-General SPEARS): 29.
asked the Postmaster-General whether his attention has been called to a recent broadcast by a deserter from the Foreign Legion giving his impressions of that regiment; and whether he will exercise his powers under the charter of the British Broadcasting Corporation to insure that in future broadcasts likely to give offence to a friendly nation shall not take place?

Sir K. WOOD: Until my hon. and gallant Friend referred to the broadcast in question in this House on the 12th February, my attention had not previously been drawn to it. I shall bring my hon. and gallant Friend's observations to the notice of the Governors of the British Broadcasting Corporation; but I desire to maintain the position of the Governors as set out in the charter and the license of the corporation and in accordance with the terms of the Resolution which was recently approved by this House.

DEATH OF THE KING OF THE BELGIANS.

The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Ramsay MacDonald): The people of this country have heard with profound sorrow of the untimely death of the King of the Belgians. I am sure that it will be the wish of this House to record its sympathy with the Royal Family and with the people of Belgium. Therefore, I propose to-morrow to move a Resolution in the following terms:
That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty to convey to His Majesty the expression of the deep regret with which this House has learned the news of the death of His Majesty the King of the Belgians, and to pray His Majesty that he will be graciously pleased to express to His Royal Highness the Duke of Brabant, the heir to the Throne of Belgium, the profound sympathy of this House with Her Majesty the Queen of the Belgians and the Royal Family, and with the Government and people of Belgium.

NAVY ESTIMATES, 1934.

Estimates presented,—for the Navy for the year 1934 [by Command]; Referred to the Committee of Supply, and to be printed.

AIR ESTIMATES, 1934.

Estimates presented,—for the year 1934 [by Command]; Referred to the Committee of Supply, and to be printed.

PUBLIC PETITIONS.

Second Report from the Committee on Public Petitions, with an Appendix, brought up, and read;

Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

Orders of the Day — UNEMPLOYMENT BILL.

Considered in Committee. [7th Allotted Day.]

[Captain BOURNE in the Chair.]

CLAUSE 34.—(Unemployment Assistance Board and Advisory Committees.)

Amendment proposed [13th February]: In page 29, line 7, after "Board," to insert:
each member of which shall be appointed by the Commons House of Parliament for a period not exceeding three years."—[Mr. Lawson.]

Question again proposed, "That those words be there inserted."

3.26 p.m.

Mr. ANEURIN BEVAN: The purpose of this Clause is to set up machinery to give permanent form to a reduction which was secured in 1931 in the course of the financial crisis. The distinction in the financial treatment of transitional payment recipients and recipients of unemployment benefit proper started under the Economy Act, 1931. That distinction was secured because it was felt that the unemployed as well as other categories should make their contribution to the recovery of the national finances. The Clause which we are now considering gives permanency to what the nation was promised was a temporary situation. In 1931 the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer promised the country that when the finances of the nation were restored the cuts imposed would also be restored. The part of the Bill now under consideration in setting up the Unemployment Assistance Board makes the cuts for the worst-treated section of the unemployed a permanent feature of our treatment of the unemployed. It is against that intention that the party to which I have the honour to belong wishes to register its first complaint.
We say that it is dishonorable, and I should like to hear from the Minister of Labor some reply to the charge, to give permanent effect to what was said to be a temporary expedient. Under the Economy Act of 1931 millions of pounds have been saved and millions of pounds were saved by the application of the means test,
which was not imposed because it was then argued that the means test ought to be a part of the general scheme. It was imposed for purely financial considerations, and it is being continued for other reasons. I listened to the Debate last Tuesday night when we were treated to two speeches defending this part of the Bill by the Noble Lord the Member for Hastings (Lord E. Percy) and the hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. K. Lindsay). The last mentioned hon. Member expressed his admiration of the way in which the Noble Lord addressed the Committee. The Noble Lord defended the setting up of this board on the ground that it was necessary to set up a board of this description because there had crept into the public life of this country what he described as the patronage of the elected person. Consequently it was necessary to remove a problem of this kind out of politics. That is the first candid admission we have had of the intention, that it was necessary to remove this feature out of politics because public assistance authorities had been improperly influenced by the recipients of public assistance.
If I may be allowed to put those pedantic phrases more crudely, I would say they mean that at the present time the recipient of public assistance is allowed to say to his local councillor, "If you do not increase my allowance, I will not vote for you." The Noble Lord regards that as an undesirable state of affairs, and I gather from the Government and from the Government supporters that they also regard it as an undesirable state of affairs. They say it is undesirable that a recipient of public assistance should be able to withhold his vote if he considers that he is being improperly treated. That is the contention advanced. For years the Income Tax payers of the country have been in the habit of telling their Members of Parliament, "If you do not reduce the Income Tax, we shall not vote for you." I understand that that is not a corruption of democracy; that when well-to-do members of the community threaten to withhold their votes because they think they are improperly treated it is high ethics and high morality, but when the poor threaten to withhold their votes because they think they are improperly treated, it is corrupt democracy.
The Noble Lord went on to defend his position by pointing out that this growing corruption of democracy was a state of affairs with which the House would have to deal. There are two ways of dealing with it. One way, of course, is to make is unnecessary for people to secure the assistance of the State, and to do that by ending poverty. But the Government and capitalism, finding it impossible to end poverty, seek to end liberty. The proposition now before the Committee is that a poor person cannot be permitted to exercise his political liberty in such a way as to redress his poverty. I would like some equally plain spoken Conservative Members to get up and defend that position, which is the position taken up by the Government under this Clause. It is a process which, if carried to its logical conclusion, would destroy Parliamentary democracy in this country. For what reason is political liberty conferred upon the people? It is conferred upon them in order that it may be exercised for the purpose of bringing about social reform, and so that that reform may be brought about as quickly as is desirable, and that those in authority may not be deaf to the pleas of those who are in distress, it is desirable that political liberty should be exercised by those who are the worst treated in the community.
If progress is to be made and political liberty is to be taken away from anyone, it should be taken away from those who are better off, because they have least to gain by progress. But the proposition now before the Committee is that those members of the community who are the unfortunate victims of a system over which they have no control are to be rendered most helpless under the law of the land. I am putting in other language what the Noble Lord himself defended. The Noble Lord is perfectly prepared to defend the patronage of the private person. He would prefer to see a poor person dependent upon the caprice of personal generosity. What would be generosity, however, on the part of the rich would be servile dependency on the part of the poor. But the Noble Lord regards that as desirable.

Mr. CROSSLEY: On a point of Order. The Noble Lord is not present.

HON. MEMBERS: He should be; that is his fault.

Mr. BEVAN: If hon. Members on the Labour Benches replied only to those Conservatives who were present we would make no speeches at all, because usually Conservatives come in and make their speeches and then run away. The position which we are taking up is that unemployment assistance should be regarded not merely as an obligation undertaken by the State, but as a right to be claimed by the citizen. This part of the Bill deprives the citizen of that right. In no Clause is unemployment assistance given to the citizen as a right, because if he had a right he could exercise that right under Parliamentary government only by being permitted to call upon the advocacy of his elected representative. It is precisely that which is taken away from him. On the Second Reading of the Bill the Minister of Labour said specifically that he was divesting himself of the responsibility for the treatment of individual cases, and by so divesting himself of his responsibility he deprives the unemployed man of his right.
I wish to emphasise that, because it is a matter of cardinal importance. There can be no civic right unless exercised by civic status, and if the unemployed man cannot appeal to his elected representative he cannot claim that right as a citizen. Indeed, the powers conferred upon the board permit them to withhold an allowance from an unemployed man, and to withhold from him the right of appeal against their decision. An hon. Member opposite shakes his head. If he looks at the language of the Bill, he will find that an aggrieved applicant for unemployment assistance can make his appeal only by the permission of the chairman of the tribunal, so that there is no prima facie right to an unemployment assistance allowance. I urge hon. Members opposite to realise this fact because this is going to be the foremost problem in British political life for some time to come. [An HON. MEMBER: "You will take care about that!"] Yes, we shall take care about that. If there were a right of appeal, not merely to a non-elected person, but to an elected person, then it could be said that a man had the right to the unemployment allowance. By withholding the right to that allowance in these circumstances, you are depriving the individual of the right to subsistence.
I think hon. Members opposite ought to drop the argument heard so often in these debates that we shall have some power in this matter, because the regulations are to come before the House of Commons. Anyone who was present on Thursday night must realise how low the House of Commons has fallen under the dominance of the Government majority. Then, we had before us an Import Duty Order of first-class importance which was opposed in the Division Lobby by both Oppositions. Yet such a contempt has this Government for the House of Commons that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade did not even reply to the debate—the first time I have known that to happen since I have been a Member of Parliament. It is no use for hon. Members to say that we shall have any effective control over this board merely because the regulations which the board makes will have to come before this Chamber. In the next place it is not the regulation itself that is of vital importance. It is the application of the regulation to the individual case. The essence of a means test is that the amount of unemployment assistance shall vary from family to family in accordance with the need of the family. If the individual is deprived of the right of appeal, then this House is divesting itself of a responsibility which no elected chamber should ever divest itself of, namely, the responsibility for dealing with the conditions of life and the maintenance of life of 5,000,000 citizens.
It may be impossible for me or the party to which I belong to persuade the Committee to change its mind now at the last moment. But we cannot relieve ourselves of the responsibility of pointing out to the Committee the implications of what it is doing here. The hon. Member for Kilmarnock has a power of idealising this sort of legislation which I very much envy. He said that the need test was a step forward, that it was a marked improvement on the existing situation—and that applicants would be better treated under it than they are being treated now. Indeed, he suggested that they might be better treated under it than they are under Unemployment Insurance because their need will be taken into consideration. [An HON. MEMBER: "It is in the Bill."] Yes, it is in the Bill but it will not be in the administration. Really the hon. Member is too ingenuous. The pur-
pose of this part of the Bill is to make the condition of the applicant for unemployment assistance worse than that of the insured person. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Then I would like to hear the Minister's reply to this point. Do we understand now that a man who receives benefit in respect of contributions may be worse off than a man who has exhausted his benefit? Is that the assumption? If so, hon. Members opposite seem to be harbouring designs even more subversive of the Constitution than the suggestions of anybody here.
The insurance principle has been defended in all parts of the Committee precisely on the ground that a man who has not exhausted his benefit, should not be subject to the disabilities of the man who has exhausted it. What is that disability? It is a financial disability. What does that mean? It means that he may have less and not more. Hon. Members opposite may shake their heads but it is very difficult indeed for them to convince me. The hon. Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. Lawson) has pointed out that in Durham where the public assistance committee has been set aside by the Minister of Health and the needs test is being administered by a commissioner, £300,000 has been saved in one year. Is that giving more favourable treatment to the poor than they were receiving previously, or are we to understand that the commissioner in Durham is treating the poor more harshly than the Government intend the Unemployment Assistance Board to treat them? If that is so, why do not the Government interfere in Durham? The Government are not interfering, because they contend that the public assistance committee there was too generous in assessing the need of applicants. I am prepared to prophesy that the Government will save millions a year more under these proposals than they are saving now under the public assistance committee. If they have saved £300,000 at Durham what do they hope to save in Glamorganshire and Monmouthshire which are administered by Labour authorities?
I frankly confess that I am alarmed by the prospect of what may happen in South Wales when these unemployment assistance allowance officers set to work. If Durham is to be taken as a pattern
the situation in South Wales will be desperate and I suggest to hon. Members that there is a limit to what men will put up with—a definite limit. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] There will be desperation there. We are almost approaching it now. I do not wish to answer the flippant interjections of hon. Members opposite because this is, for us, a very serious thing. To those who have brothers, fathers, and sons unemployed in South Wales, with no prospect of getting any employment, it is a very serious question indeed what fate is going to befall those people. As far as we can gather from the Government, and judging from our own experience, you are going to deprive the unemployed people in South Wales, on the Clyde, in Lancashire, of money which they are at present able to obtain. That is the purpose of the Bill. It is mealy-mouthed cant for any hon. Member to say that there is any other purpose behind it. If there is any other purpose behind it, withdraw your commissioner from Durham. If there is any other purpose behind it, why in the course of the last two years have you brought pressure after pressure to bear on public assistance committees to reduce their assessments?
Hon. Members wanted to go into the Lobby to increase the allowance for the child from 2s. to 3s. If you pass this Clause in its present form, you will be depriving yourself of the right to defend the child, under this Part of the Act, who may have less than 2s. a week. If the House divests itself of the right to intervene in the individual case, then as these men are to be assessed in accordance with need, and the other unemployed persons are not subjected to that test, a child may have less than 2s., and you will not be able to raise the matter in any way. That is what I am impressing upon hon. Members. No public assistance committee, no Member of Parliament, no elected person of any sort will be able to intervene with these paid officials of the Unemployment Assistance Board. Anyone who has had any experience of Poor Law administration knows very well that you can never trust a permanent official to treat the poor decently. [HON. MEMBERS: "Withdraw!"] I am not withdrawing that. I speak from personal experience. The permanent official keeps
his eye on the regulations, and as I have said before in this Debate, that fact lay behind the administration of the Poor Law for centuries.

Mr. BOOTHBY: Would the hon. Member apply this doctrine in the case of the nationalisation of industry, for example?

Mr. DICKIE: Prior to the appointment of the commissioners in the county of Durham, the very point that the hon. Member is making now is the thing that we pointed out to those who refused to administer the law.

Mr. BEVAN: I admit that. In other words, if they behaved like the commissioner, the commissioner would not have been put in. We know that very well. With regard to the question of the hon. Member for East Aberdeen (Mr. Boothby), in the case of nationally-owned industries the veto lies here, but in the case of this Bill the veto is being taken away from here. That is the whole point.

Mr. HANNON: Does the hon. Member seriously suggest to this Committee that the public officials of this country charged with the administration of the laws of this country on behalf of the poor have not done their best in every single circumstance to help the poor?

Mr. BEVAN: The answer is to be found in our whole local government system, which has been built up on the assumption that the citizen should have the right of appeal over the heads of the permanent paid officials to his elected representative or body.

Mr. HANNON: Which he has always had.

Mr. BEVAN: And which is now being taken away from him. That is precisely what is happening under this Clause. Hon. Members have swallowed this Bill in a gulp, and they have not realised what it means. I am quite sure that if they did, they would not face it with such complacency. They are making a complete revolution of the relationship between the poor person and the State, and they are making it at a most dangerous time in the history of this country and of Europe. They are making it at a time when democratic practice ought to be strengthened, not weakened,
and I would urge hon. Members in all parts of the House to insist that the Minister should shift from his present position, because hon. Members must really understand that there will be nothing left for unemployed persons between elections if this goes through, except organised rebellion against the State. If you close the avenues of appeal between the citizen and the State in between elections, then you must realise that human beings are not going to have the patience to sit down in resignation for five years until they have another chance at the ballot.

The FIRST COMMISSIONER of WORKS (Mr. Ormsby-Gore): I understood that a large number of the Opposition wished to make it seven years or longer.

Mr. BEVAN: If the Opposition were the Government, they would be so successful that the people would not want an election.

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: Then do I understand that if the Labour Government ever come into power again, they will suspend Parliament and carry on?

Mr. BEVAN: What the Labour party would do if they came into power would be to maintain the reality of democracy and not sacrifice the reality of democracy to the form. You are engaged in sapping the content out of democracy, because you are taking away the very essence of democracy, which lies in the right of the citizen to make his poverty politically articulate.

Mr. HANNON: Has the hon. Member spoken after consultation with the hon. and learned Member for East Bristol (Sir S. Cripps)?

Mr. BEVAN: I have no quarrel and never had any quarrel with what the hon. and learned Member for East Bristol has said. The position that is taken up on this side of the House is perfectly clear in this matter. We would use political liberty for the purpose of winning economic liberty. You take away political liberty because you are afraid the workers will use it to gain economic liberty.

Mr. HOLFORD KNIGHT: I understand that the hon. Member's complaint is that the aggrieved citizen is completely
severed from any means of bringing his grievance before Parliament. A man may be aggrieved by this new authority, but under this Bill how is he being prevented from bringing that complaint before his representative, and what hindrance is being put upon that representative to bring that complaint before the Minister?

Mr. BEVAN: It is very obvious that the hon. and learned Member derives his knowledge of Statutes from some mystical source which is not open to the rest of us. We have been discussing this Bill for weeks, and——

Mr. KNIGHT: Do I understand——

Mr. BEVAN: Perhaps the hon. and learned Member will permit me to continue. The Minister of Labour has said that this Clause makes it legal that this board is not to be put on Supply, but on the Consolidated Fund. That means that we cannot question the Minister about its day-to-day administration. If the hon. and learned Member would point out by what procedure in this House a Member could raise an individual grievance, I would be with him. But the Minister has said, "It is undesirable that I should be held responsible for the individual ascertainment."

Mr. KNIGHT: It would be clearly undesirable for thousands of individual cases to be raised on the Floor of this House. I am meeting the complaint that the aggrieved citizen will have no means of having his complaint investigated. I say that he can bring it before his Member of Parliament, who can carry it to the Minister.

Mr. BEVAN: The hon. and learned Member in this matter is not learned, because the Minister would inform him that in no circumstances under this Bill could he be held responsible for individual cases. That is the position, so that the hon. and learned Member is wrong. There are only two cases in which an appeal can be made. One is where a man has been put in the category of cases of special difficulty, when he has a right of appeal. The other case is where he disagrees with the ascertainment of his needs, and then he can appeal only if he is permitted by the chairman; so that in that case there is no right.

Mr. KNIGHT: I am not suggesting that any Vote can be put down on which an
individual case can be raised. I am suggesting that there is the ordinary machinery of Parliamentary representative government, which will still be available to aggrieved persons under this Bill.

Mr. BEVAN: It is obvious that courtesy is being abused, because the hon. and learned Member falls back upon empty generalisation. The position is as I have described it, and I want hon. Members to face up to the implications of the position, with their eyes open. Why is this being done? It is being done, of course, because this is not a Government representing the people of Great Britain. It represents the federation of British industries. I have here a publication issued by the Engineering and Allied Employers' National Federation informing His Majesty's Government what they think ought to be done with this question of unemployment. They say:
If it were possible to segregate such persons as have lost their productive power or who are too old or who are physically unfit for industrial employment, it might be possible to devise a scheme for their support which does not fall directly upon the shoulders of industry.
There you have clearly the producer who says, "I ought not to carry them; it should be the Income Tax payer, the rentier." Then we have the National Confederation of Employers' Organisations informing the Government what they ought to do, and the Government obediently do it.
The Statutory Commission, as part of its duties, should be charged with laying down the principles to govern the scales of relief, and in that connection we suggest that these scales should follow the principle of being such as will not tempt the individual to improvidence while he is at work, or tempt him to prefer relief to work when he is unemployed, or be such as to interfere with the mobility of labour or create and maintain rigidity of wage rates and of costs of production.
How does this organisation of employers in Great Britain propose that these things are to be secured? By the setting up of a Statutory Commission which shall be outside the governance of the House of Commons. I ask the Minister to face the naked horror of that position. This is a machine of the kind that the employers want, because it will bring about the set of circumstances which they think desirable. I have quoted from the evidence of the National Confederation of Employers' Organisations given before
the Royal Commission and circulated to all Members of Parliament. The position that is being taken up is, that if you can take out of politics, and out of the daily administration of the House of Commons, such a matter as this, if you charge a Statutory Committee with this work, you may rest assured that the conditions will be less favourable because, as the hon. Member for East Birkenhead (Mr. White) pointed out on Tuesday, if the conditions under Part II of the scheme are more favourable than under Part I, the Statutory Advisory Committee will complain that they are being embarrassed by the Unemployment Assistance Board. The Unemployment Assistance Board, in order not to embarrass the sister committee, will have to keep down the standards.
A more sinister aspect is that the operation of this Clause will depress the standards of public assistance, because there will be tendency on the part of persons chargeable to the board to get themselves transferred as sick persons to public assistance rates, if the local assistance committee is more favourable to them than the board. The local relief committee, to protect itself against men becoming chargeable to the local rates, will depress their own scales of relief, in order to get men back on the board. So here you have an instrument which not only segregates certain of the unemployed, but also is used as a lever to reduce the social services of the country as a whole. I beg hon. Members, if they pass this Clause, not to pass it complacently, but to pass it with a full realisation of all the implications involved. It is going to do more to undermine the confidence of the people of this country in representative institutions than anything else which could be done.
I do not think hon. Members want privately to reassure themselves that they need not worry because the Socialist forces in the world have been so heavily defeated that they will not be able to take advantage of circumstances of this kind. I profoundly believe that there exists in this country a great upsurge of feeling for democratic institutions. I believe that the consequence of what has recently happened in Austria has been to make Englishmen rally more and more to their own institutions. This strikes a heavy blow at them. I do not
want to warn hon. Members at all, because at this moment we have not the power. I merely want to point out that the road upon which they have set their feet may lead to a less desirable goal than the one they have in mind. I believe that this is a very bad mistake on the part of the Government. It is always dangerous to drive men to resentment. It will wake up in places where you least expect it, and I implore the Committee, before it parts with these powers which have been entrusted to elected people in this country for centuries, to consider the matter very carefully, and to bear in mind what may be the fruits of their action.

4.12 p.m.

Sir ARTHUR STEEL-MAITLAND: I am going to try to comply with the advice given by Mr. Speaker, so as not to take up the time of the House unduly, as there are other Members wanting to speak. Therefore, the hon. Member opposite will forgive me if I do not follow him into some of the ramifications with which he has dealt this afternoon. There are two quite clear impressions which he has left on my mind. One is that he is the champion of political liberty and freedom, and of the traditions of Parliamentary liberty; at the same time, he has no quarrel with the hon. and learned Member for East Bristol (Sir S. Cripps), and, indeed, that their views largely coincide. The other is that he has given us as the test of political liberty in that there should not be institutions for government which are remote, and not subject to day-to-day questions in this House. It is the more strange to have that exhortation when we remember that the London Transport Board was introduced, in the first place, by the Socialist Minister of Transport, Mr. Herbert Morrison, and that that Board is less subject to Parliamentary criticism, less liable to be dealt with by questions from day to day in this House than this proposed procedure, which he criticises.

Mr. A. BEVAN: Are people's livelihood and food at stake?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: There are thousands of people employed under the Transport Board, and, of course, the principle in question applies to them.

Mr. W. THORNE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the trade unions have their right in that case to go to the board?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: I am quite ready to deal with that when the occasion arises. Then the hon. Member said that it is contrary to a solemn pledge to give permanence to a temporary arrangement by bringing in Part II of this Bill. Anyone who is familiar with the history of unemployment insurance must realise that for several years it has been perfectly obvious that if this country were to continue—I do not think there is more than a handful of people who would not wish it to continue—with a proper system of unemployment insurance, a three-decker system with some kind of administration in between the unemployment insurance administration and the Poor Law has become inevitable. It has been increasingly clear for the last 10 years. The proposal here is not to give permanence to a temporary arrangement; it follows the evolution of the unemployment insurance system. In order not to take too long, I will not go into the needs test for it will come up in Committee on a later Clause. We have to deal with another question here.
Part II is the most striking part of the Bill. I agree at once with the hon. Member on that. The question we have to deal with is the authority that shall act under this Part. When I first read the Bill I rubbed my eyes with some surprise to see that the suggested authority was different in composition and nature from the authority that was suggested by either the Majority Report of the commission or the Minority Report. I was not attracted by it in the least. What I did was this. I say it with all humility before the hon. Member who has told us that we on this side of the House, deal with these things with too great complacency and without taking the trouble to read the Bill. I studied both the reports and the Bill on this question with great care. In considering the proposed board, I took the points that were really of importance in this connection which were suggested in the Majority and Minority Reports. I tested the composition of this body to see how it satisfied these points. The first is the discretionary power of the Minister and its application, use and control. I
am amazed at the whirligig of opinion on the benches opposite. The hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. A. Bevan) is to-day saying that we should restore the discretion of the Minister——

Mr. A. BEVAN: indicated dissent.

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: Then I wonder what the hon. Member did say. I do not want to misrepresent him.

Mr. BEVAN: I was dealing with the proposals of this Bill. If the right hon. Gentleman wants to know what, our proposals are, he should read the evidence of the Trades Union Congress to the Royal Commission. That contains our proposals.

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: Then I am not misrepresenting the hon. Member. What he said was, "You are taking away from the ordinary person the right to have a decision made either by an elective authority locally or, if the authority is transferred to the centre, by the Minister, who can be questioned." That meant nothing else, if you are to have Part II at all, than restoring the ministerial discretion. The hon. Member attacks the fact that the ultimate decision upon the degree of the allowance that might be given would rest upon the local appeal tribunal. I have listened to the whole of the hon. Member's speech, and I stand to be challenged by anyone who studies his speech carefully and draws his conclusions from it. The whole of the former attitude of the party opposite was that they did not want to have the ministerial discretion. They wanted this question to be decided by a tribunal of a judicial character. I am not talking about the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton).

Mr. MAXTON: At the time my hon. Friends and I expressed our dissent we were Members of the party above the Gangway. A considerable proportion of the Labour party objected to the ministerial discretion.

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: The majority of the party were for the removal of the ministerial discretion. They wanted a right to what was then called extended benefit, and they wanted the exercise of that right to be decided by a tribunal of a judicial character. That was
their attitude. To-day the wheel has turned a full circle so far as we can judge from the speeches to which we listened in the last Debate and the speech of the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale to-day. I hope to goodness the Minister will never be saddled with the discretion again. I had to exercise that discretion. If it is to be exercised and is not to be a sham it puts an intolerable burden on the Minister, and if he tries to exercise it properly the burden is so great that the rest of his work suffers.
Let me give a case to show the sort of thing that used to happen. I remember an old Member of Parliament on those benches, for whom I had a great liking and respect—Mr. Robert Smillie—was talking with me in my room about the matter one day, when another Member, Mr. Willie Adamson, came in and said, "We must get you to look into this point for the use of your discretion." It was a question whether a miner had made a real attempt to get employment. Mr. Adamson grew heated about it and when Mr. Smillie chaffed him he had left the room. I turned to Mr. Smillie and said, "He seems really convinced about that man." Mr. Smillie said, "I am sure Adamson would not put that case before you in that way unless he was convinced." I took the case up, had correspondence with the mine manager, and went into the whole thing. In the end I gave the man benefit. It turned out to be justified and we got the man a job at the same mine. If that kind of thing is to come up in a large number of cases it cannot be done by the Minister within the limits of human endurance, and it means that the rest of his work must suffer. In days when industrial troubles exist and a lot of the Minister's time ought to be taken up with them, he ought not to have that burden placed on him. It does no good to the men whose cases are involved. These cases would really be settled with just as much justice to them if they came before an impartial body. I do not believe in the least that in the end it would be a greater benefit to these men to have their cases decided by the Minister. I consider that after the trouble I took in that particular case and in a large number of others they were no better off than they would have been by really impartial people considering their cases.
I have said that I did not at first sight like the proposal in Part II of this Bill, and I wanted to see whether the men would be fairly protected. We have to divide the whole problem into two parts. The first is the general principles which are to be applied, and the second is whether proper care and consideration will be taken in individual cases. The general principles are contained in regulations which have to be brought before this House before they can be applied. There is not much opportunity of a dictatorship by this body in view of that fact. Even the general rules of working of this body, although they do not have to be approved by this House, have to be brought before the House so that it is cognisant of them. If it is a case of less or more in the matter of the allowances granted, there is an appeal to a local body on which, of the three people who have to be appointed according to the Sixth Schedule, there has to be a member representing the workers, who will undoubtedly be a member of a trade union.

Mr. COVE: I do not think the right hon. Gentleman is right under Part II.

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: I am subject to correction, but I think I am right. I am talking from memory, but I think it is in the Sixth Schedule. When it comes to a question of less or more in the matter of allowances, the chairman of the appeal board has to give his permission for an appeal to be made, but when it comes to the more serious decision under Clause 39 as to whether a man passes out of the system into the Poor Law system, he can have his appeal whether permission is given by the chairman or not. There is no question of his power of appeal in that case. Truly, in these circumstances, to say that this Unemployment Board is a body that will exercise dictatorial powers is a misuse of language. The hon. Member for Ebbw Vale, with all his eloquence, has not perhaps taken that care in reading the Schedules and the other parts of the Bill which he commended to Members of this side of the Committee.

Mr. A. BEVAN: The right hon. Gentleman knows very well that membership of the board secures no protection for individual persons.

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: What was asked for by the Labour party in the old days was the right of appeal. My predecessor, Mr. Tom Shaw, fought in the old days for a legal right and a power to appeal to a court of a judicial character. That is exactly what we have got here.

Mr. BEVAN: No.

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: Excuse me. He has a legal right provided that he has certain qualifications, and has not disqualified himself. The degree of exercise of the right is to be determined by a court which is judicial in character—which is the appeal court. That is, in principle, precisely what hon. Members opposite used to ask for in those days, though the hon. Member is now objecting to it.
I pass to the other tests which the proposed Board should satisfy. One thing for which both parties on the Commission were anxious was that there should really be uniformity. To the Commission uniformity meant not a deadly, dull, mechanical uniformity in every detail, but rather what I should call latitude in minor matters and similarity on general lines. I have read both the majority and minority reports of the Royal Commission, and I think the minority have a great deal of sympathy with that point of view. It is said that if we were to try, from the centre, to put Regulations for action before a large number of different local bodies it would be difficult to get anything like the uniformity which both sides of the Commission want. Anyone who read the majority report will see that doubts were in their minds when they made their own recommendation about it.
It is not easy for the Minister of Health, even though he is dealing with local authorities day by day in respect of many matters, to get from them uniformity of action when they all have different ideas and different methods. If it is difficult for a Minister who deals with them day by day, it would be infinitely harder for the Minister of Labour, who is not dealing with them habitually, to get uniformity of action. Both sides of the Commission thought it would be advisable to have uniformity of principles in the administration, and I think that on the whole they will get it better through a body such as is set up by this Clause.
Another point to remember is that a system of this kind is a difficult proposition from an administrative point of view. It has on one side of it an unemployment insurance system, with which it has close connection, and on the other side the Poor Law authority; it is itself an intermediate organisation between the two. The majority report proposed a dual series of committees of the local authorities separate from and distinct from one another. That has advantages of some kind, but a great many disadvantages from the point of view of uniformity. The proposal has a further disadvantage in another respect, from the point of view of Members opposite themselves.

Mr. A. BEVAN: I do not agree.

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: But you have not yet heard the "respect."

Mr. BEVAN: The right hon. Gentleman is pushing at an open door. We do not agree with a means test at all, so all this machinery goes by the board.

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: In this case what I have to say has nothing to do with the means test, but with this question of having the Poor Law committee and an Assistance committee side by side. If we are to have an organisation in between unemployment insurance and the local authority we should also take into account the problem of placing and training men and getting them back into industry. That will always have to be done by the Ministry of Labour. The hon. Member himself referred to miners in his constituency who, he says, will never get work in the pits again. No doubt it is of great importance to them to get assistance or unemployment benefit, but what is of far greater importance is that they should be replaced in industry. Therefore, the closer the new authority under Part II of the Bill can be to the Ministry of Labour the better it will be, because it is the Employment Exchanges of the Ministry of Labour which are primarily concerned with placing the men in work. The fact that this board, which is appointed by the Ministry of Labour, will be in closer touch with the Ministry ought to prove of more advantage in the task of getting the men back to work than the proposal of the Royal Commission.
There were one or two other points which I was going to put forward, but I do not wish to take up more time, and I would only say that it was my misfortune, but not my fault, that I was not present when the Bill was first brought in. I should have liked to compliment the Government on at least trying to deal with this question as an organic whole, and I should like, if they will permit it, to compliment both my old friend the Minister of Labour and the Parliamentary Secretary on the way they presented the Measure. I started with a prejudice against the board as outlined in Clause 34, but after working through the whole question as carefully as I could I came to the conclusion that it was an extraordinarily difficult thing to devise a good authority to work Part II, and that, if we are to have such a system as Part II provides, then unquestionably the proposal in this Bill was more likely to serve the purpose than the suggestions of either the majority or the minority reports. It seems to me, on the whole, a very good way out, and a very good solution of an extraordinarily difficult question of administration.

4.38 p.m.

Mr. MALLALIEU: After having discussed this matter for more than one-and-half days I think Members of the Committee will certainly realise the immense importance of Clause 34. It sets up a board which will have to deal with the fortunes of some 5,000,000 people, counting in the dependants as well as those who will actually be clients of the board. The board will loom tremendously in the lives of each one of those 5,000,000 individuals. It will be just about the last thing in the world against which the clients of the board will have to match their wits in an attempt to better their conditions. Nearly every material thing which they will have will come from that board either directly or indirectly. I am afraid I have not reached that peace of mind regarding the board which the right hon. Member for Tamworth (Sir A. Steel-Maitland) seems to have arrived at—after some turmoil, I gather. However humanely the board seeks to go about its work it cannot but appear to those with whom it will deal as otherwise than some sort of machine for keeping together a rather wasted body with an attenuated soul, and I think the real danger is that
it will appear in a very much less favourable light even than that. However humanely the work of the board may be discharged, it seems to me that it will figure in the minds of those who come under it as a machine set up by their rulers just to keep life together, as it were, for cannon fodder at some future time. I do not think that view would be justifiable—not one little bit—but I am afraid, having regard to the sources of information which so many people now have, that that may grow to be the opinion which they come to have of the board.
This gigantic possibility for evil, as I can see it, is being placed in the hands of a board which really has not a chance, from the nature of the circumstances and the necessary limitations placed upon it, of appearing really in a humane light. It is being put right outside the effective day-to-day control of this House. I am aware, of course, of what has been said about the control which the House will have over the board. My hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. A. Bevan) has referred to the procedure for the control of Orders made by outside bodies, and we have been told that on four or five occasions in the year the House can discuss the conduct of this board, but if there is any hon. Member who is apt to be impressed by such statements—I do not use the word offensively—who is apt to consider that they are really effective as a means of control, I would ask him to consider the statement frankly made by the Minister that the whole of this Bill is really an attempt to put this subject outside politics. The right hon. Gentleman the Minister seems to dissent from that statement, but I think I do not misrepresent him. It seems to me that he has said that the effect will be to put the day-to-day control of the affairs of these 5,000,000 people to whom I have referred outside the control of Parliament. That appears to be the whole object of the Bill; if it does not mean that these matters are to be outside the control of the elected representatives of the people, I am afraid. I do not understand what that phrase does mean.
The Government have had very obvious reasons, which have weighed heavily with them, in coming to this decision. First of all I suppose there
was the desire to prevent a recurrence of "Poplarism," in the very widest sense of that word. I have not any doubt myself that that was behind the Government in the production of these plans. Further, there has been, no doubt, a desire to eliminate from political contests the corrupt feature of candidates bidding one against the other for the favours of the least fortunate sections of the community by something which may appear little less than bribes. I admit that there are real dangers along those lines, such is human frailty, and I should be the very last to advocate that a scheme permitting such dangers should be allowed to remain were it not for the fear that their elimination by the methods here proposed may possibly lead to very much graver danger.
If actual responsibility for the administration of the means test did not rest with the Minister, nevertheless political responsibility was there, through locally elected bodies, and that fact has had a powerful effect, to my mind, on the tempers of those who have had to submit to the means test. They have refrained in a most remarkable degree from acts of violence because, as I submit, they have felt that their representatives could, in some way or other, bring influence to bear upon the officials who they felt had given them cause for grievance. I know how angry I myself become when I feel that an official—person or body—is acting unreasonably about a complaint about which I feel acutely, and Heaven knows it has never been a question of daily bread with me, but usually some little matter of an open postal packet or a triviality such as that. How much more difficult must it be for an unemployed man who is right up against the wall, when he comes up against an official who, he feels, is not doing justice to his case. His grievance will be with him always, day and night, and he will not be allowed to forget it. If his own stomach is not reminding him, it will be his friends, who will be asking him to come along and have some innocent enjoyment which he will not be able to afford. It may be that his own children will have a pinched appearance. Whatever it is, his grievance will be with him day and night, and it is not at all hard to imagine the rancour with which such a man will regard the official of the
bureaucracy which, he imagines, is doing him wrong. On this point, I should like to read to the Committee four lines from a book about the unemployed man, describing the feelings of the unemployed towards the official in the Employment Exchange. Through no serious fault on the part of the official, the unemployed man feels a resentment against him, and for the moment imagines that he cannot control it. He says:
And the bloody blokes wouldn't have their jobs if it wasn't for us men out of a job either. That's what gets me about their holding their noses up.
They treat you like a lump of dirt, they do. I see a navvy reach across the counter and shake one of them by the collar the other day. The rest of us felt like cheering. Of course, he lost his benefit over it; I don't know what they got him on. But they did. But the clerk deserved it for his sassy way.
Even though there is not a real grievance, if the man is up against an official the grievance, real or imaginary, is magnified out of all proportion. It is proposed to hand these vital matters over to a bureaucratic body, in respect of which this House will have no effective control. Even under the present system, the safety valve of political control has only just been sufficient to prevent major acts of violence, but now it is proposed to remove that safety valve. I entirely agree with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Tamworth that there are other safeguards, such as the appeal tribunal and so forth, but the safeguard to which I refer is to be removed. Although the result may not be very great in normal times, if there should be an abnormal stress it may lead to irretrievable collapse. I see the political advantages to hon. Members and to the Government in adopting the scheme which is proposed. Hon. Members will be rid of a very tiresome source of friction between themselves and their constituents. I do not suppose that one of us would not desire to be rid of that if we thought we could safely be rid of it. The prospect of being rid of that tiresome source of friction is so dazzling to some hon. Members that I fear we may have been overlooking a vital principle which underlies the whole matter, which is: Is this House to hold the scales between the individual subject
and the bureaucracy, or are we to hand over the vital interests of 5,000,000 of our constituents to a bureaucratic body over which we have not effective day-to-day control? That is the principle which is of such vital importance.
If we throw off our responsibilities in this vital matter, I see no reason why people should look in future to this House for protection, or to individual Members of it for leadership. We ought not to do such a thing unless we are absolutely convinced of it for other reasons than those of convenience to ourselves and electoral convenience for the Government. Bureaucracy, from its very nature, cannot be as responsive to currents of opinion in the minds of the people whose affairs are administered, can politicians. It is the business of politicians to find out those currents and to see how far they should be given attention. I am not saying one word against the individuals who will compose the Unemployment Assistance Board, or against the officers who will work under them. Bureaucracy, from its very nature, has characteristics which do not apply to the individuals who make it up. The business of those individuals is to administer, but it is almost impossible for a bureaucracy to administer properly and to give real and human attention to the men whose affairs they administer. If we hand over these affairs to a bureaucratic board, there may very well be repercussions upon this House which nobody who cares for what it stands for will view with equanimity. Henceforth, an unelected body will be dealing with matters which are looming inordinately in the minds of so many of our people, while we, their elected representatives, will seem to have no control over the matter at all.
Most people in this country thoroughly believe in Parliament. I am pretty certain that nearly all the people want to believe in it. I am anxious that by this Clause we should not do anything to add to the number of those who merely want to believe in Parliament but who have become disillusioned after seeing this House apparently laying on one side, or handing over to bureaucratic bodies, matters which should properly remain in the control of the freely-elected House of Commons.

4.52 p.m.

Mr. CROSSLEY: I have had an opportunity since last Tuesday of studying the arguments in support of and in opposition to this Clause. They fall into three main categories. The first objection that has been raised is to the dangerous effect of Part II of the Bill upon the insurance scheme outlined in Part I. The second objection is that which the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Mallalieu) has raised, in regard to the removal of the administration of unemployment assistance from Parliamentary control. The third objection is the duplication of the machinery of relief—I must apologise to the Committee for a beastly cold.
The first objection was put most clearly by the hon. Member for East Birkenhead (Mr. White) when he said that Part II of the Bill "knocked insurance simply silly." I wholly dissent from that view. We have an expression in my constituency, "I was playing me a week." It means that after, say, three weeks' work at a mill, which has been closed by reason of the order book not being filled and stocks being low, the man went on to benefit. The people under Part I of the Bill are those who are in and out of employment. They have other resources. Part II of the Bill deals with people who are in a totally different category. They are people whose clothes are worn out and whose boots are worn through. Their need is definitely greater than that of the people under Part I. I am grateful that the Government have recognised that a man who has been out of employment for six months or more is in need of more relief than the people under Part I of the Bill. The most cruel results of the administration of the last two years has been the setting of a limit, as a result of which no man might receive more than the amount payable under Insurance benefit.

Mr. LOGAN: Will the hon. Gentleman please tell me where, in any part of Part II of the Bill, it is provided that a man may receive more benefit?

Mr. CROSSLEY: Under Part II of the Bill, the money that a man receives under Part I, as insurance as of right, may be supplemented, if his needs necessitate. For that reason, I should have thought that this was the actual maintenance for which hon. Members of the Opposition have been asking for such a very long
time. If total maintenance is not needed in a particular case, supplementary assistance is given to bridge the gap between the maintenance level—or his maintenance level, in the case of a particular man—and his resources, even though the resources be in the insurance money payable under Part I of the Bill.
The second objection raised by hon. Members has been in regard to the taking away of parliamentary control. If it is true that parliamentary control and interference in individual cases have been taken away, it is certainly not true that parliamentary supervision of general principles of administration has been taken away. I welcome this delegation of powers. I believe that the present system is the more dangerous in which a Member of Parliament has a certain amount of right of patronage; but when he puts up a case definitely and invariably the Minister says, "I have no power to alter this provision." In the Debate last Tuesday, an analogy was suggested with the Minister of Pensions. I thought that that was a bad analogy, because although the Minister of Pensions has a real power, he has always had the most absolute discretion. If it had not been for his great personality it is probable that at one time his job would have become intolerable. Owing to his imposing the most rigid discretion on his servants he is able to say, to those who bring up a pension case, that unless there is fresh evidence there is no hope for the case which is being brought up. That strikes me as a bad analogy of direct, individual Ministerial responsibility over individual cases. In any case, the patronage of a Member of Parliament presupposes the right, in the last instance, of the Minister to reverse a determination. To vest that right in the Minister, is going—to borrow the words of the hon. Member for East Birkenhead—to "knock discretion perfectly silly." I believe the hon. Member believes in the principles of discretion in the administration of relief.
We then come to the question of what machinery ought to be adopted. I am very grateful again to the Government for it, because I have asked for some time for the adoption of such machinery as this against the Poor Law and its very real stigma. The hon. Member for Colne Valley will know, as I know, what the thrifty people in our district think of the Poor Law. The proposal of the Royal
Commission savoured too much of the Poor Law, in fact, I do not see how it is possible to set up such a local committee as the commission recommended without the committee being elected; and directly you have an elected committee there are three probable difficulties. In the first place, if one thing is worse than the personal patronage of a Member of Parliament it is the personal patronage of a town councillor. You have also the difficulty that the committee are administering moneys for which they have no financial responsibility, and, in the next place, the crucial difficulty, the lack of uniformity in administration as between district and district. I do not see how you can get uniformity of administration under local administration if you do not include in the Bill hard and fast regulations and actual scales of benefit. But that again knocks out discretion. Therefore, a tripartite machinery was necessary because there are three categories of men in need of some assistance, those in need of insurance, those in need of unemployment industrial relief, and those who are not really industrial cases, but Poor Law cases, and nobody knows the distinction between the last two categories better than a good trade unionist.
I congratulate the Minister of Labour particularly on the wider functions of this board. The Government at least have seen the necessity for a real collaborative body in unemployment administration, and when we get the self-government which some of us want—it may be held up for two or three years, but it will come in the end—we shall have in existence a body with which the industries of the country can collaborate so that unemployment and employment can be dovetailed better than at present, to the infinite advantage of the unemployed man. May I end with a quotation from Burke:
In other Governments every question of expense is only a question of economy; with ours, in every question of expense there is always a mixture of constitutional consideration.
I believe that the Government have solved the constitutional considerations imposed upon them by the creation of this body and have satisfied the supervision and rights of this House as well as the dignity and cleanliness of local government.

5.5 p.m.

Mr. MAXTON: I wish to add my criticism to those already made against the setting up of this Assistance Board. The right hon. Gentleman for Tamworth (Sir A. Steel-Maitland) with some degree of justification chaffed the official Opposition for its enthusiasm for the setting up of this particular kind of detached body. I do not think that Members of the official Opposition have anything to gain by denying that in their ranks there is a large body of opinion which believes that industrial and commercial controls, as well as other controls, are more fitly taken in hand by bodies outside Parliamentary interference than by Government Departments directly. That point of view has been strongly propagated in the ranks of labour, and is being propagated just now. I have found during my period in Parliament that in prospect all these boards are hailed with great enthusiasm by Members of the House but in retrospect are damned with equal unanimity by all Members of the House. They look awfully good and detached, responsible and careful, until you have them, but when you have got them you find that they are a tremendous nuisance, a constant interference with fair play and common sense.
As a Member of Parliament I refuse to accept my share of the Vote of Censure that is implied in every proposal of this description; that a Member of Parliament is not a fit and proper person to act in an honourable, honest and intelligent way. In every one of these proposals the conception is implicit that a Member of Parliament has a morale inferior to that of the average available in the community, and that there are to be found at any given moment detached persons—probably of whom we have never heard before—who in a moral capacity, in administrative ability and in political wisdom, are miles above the ordinary person elected to this House. It is fantastic, it is romanticism, it is nonsense. There is one thing which can be said in favour of Members in this House and that is that they compare favourably, and no better, with people outside. The idea that you can get giants of finer clay than there are here to run jobs which are a little bit irksome and difficult is a conception which has no foundation in fact; and it is a conception which gives rise to dictatorships. The idea that here is some great saviour who is going to shoulder all
our troubles, do all our thinking, carry all our responsibilities, and make so perfect a state of society that none of us need bother about anything, is just a lot of arrant rubbish. That is this Clause in a concentrated form.
The right hon. Member for Tamworth accused the Opposition of arguing for the restoration of ministerial discretion, but I think he confuses the difference between discretion and responsibility. I would try to reduce the discretion of the Minister to the smallest point, but I would carry his responsibilities to the maximum. We are not asking the Minister to shoulder the detail work of investigating individual cases. The right hon. Member for Tamworth tried, pathetically, I will not say glibly, to rack our hearts about the overwrought Minister, although it is extraordinary that on every occasion there are tremendous numbers in the queues for these overwrought positions. We are not asking that the Minister shall investigate personally every case under Part II; all we are asking is that in the House of Commons the Minister shall be responsible to the House of Commons, and that he will not be able to push his responsibilities on one side and say, as Ministers do confidentially say to Members, as we all know when we go to them about a case privately, "There is nothing I would like better than to oblige you in this matter. I think it is a hard case, and that you have justice on your side; but it is the board, and I can do absolutely nothing." We do not want that. That is irresponsibility.
The Minister of Labour will remember that in the days of the last Conservative Government of blessed memory, during the halcyon years between 1924–29, when everything went so well in this country, when everybody was happy, when there was no unemployment except a million or two and no trade disturbances except the General Strike, the Government during that period brought before the House a Bill called The Reorganisation of Offices (Scotland) Bill. Over a long period of time, indeed, ever since the union, there had grown up in Scotland a whole collection of Boards of Agriculture, Boards of Education, Commissions for Prisons and commissions for this and that. When these various boards and commissions were set up the poor boobs—I think that is
the term—who sat in this House in those days believed that it was a way of bringing to bear outstanding talent available outside Parliament for the administration of a particular sphere of work. During the centuries Scottish political administration had become cluttered up with commissions and commissioners and bodies of various kinds. During the Parliament of 1924–29 the Reorganisation of Offices (Scotland) Bill was introduced to sweep clean away every single one of these boards and commissions, which had taken centuries to build up, and we were told by Members of the Conservative party in so many words that it had been proved that these independent detached persons were only a nuisance and that most of them were doing at high salaries jobs which could be done more efficiently by a junior civil servant at a lower salary. At one swoop all these boards were swept away. We got rid of the litter of centuries in Scotland. The same men, because many of those who were in the Conservative Government in those days are in the present Government, are now starting to impose another collection of these old men of the sea round the necks of the decent politicians of this country.
I want the Minister of Labour and the Committee to realise that we shall not get rid of the troubles in this way. If the idea is to rid us of worrying about the unemployed it will not work. It should not work. There is not one of us here but should have the unemployed man with us day and night until such time as he no longer exists. Our task and that of the Government—and the people have chosen us to face it, not to dodge it—is to set ourselves to abolish the unemployed man, but at the same time, while he exists, to see that he is treated decently, humanely, and in a way that can be defended by intelligent people. We have no right to try to shift that on to anybody else; that is dodging a responsibility.
The question of patronage has been slung about very freely—the ability of a Member of Parliament to get a shilling or two extra for one of his constituents. I have never, in my time in the House, handling thousands of unemployment insurance cases, known a case in which I got a shilling or two more for any constituent of mine than he was entitled to under the Statute. I have on many occa-
sions got for a man his legal rights, which he might have been done out of if I had not been there to raise them for him, but never did I get for a man more than he was entitled to—never once. If there is a suggestion that that has been done in some quarters politically, I would like to hear about it, because I thought I was as alert on behalf of my constituents as anyone. If other people have been getting for their unemployed constituents more than their just rights, I have only been getting the bare minimum, and I feel that I have been ill used, and that the patronage has not been outside the House, but inside—that certain Members of the House have been getting favours that have not been available to all.
The Minister knows perfectly well that there has been no patronage in connection with this Act in any sense of the term, and, if there were, is it not just about time that political patronage, which has existed since the beginning of time, should begin to percolate down to the poorest section of the community? Political patronage that can yet your uncle or your cousin made into an admiral, or an archbishop, or a lord chief justice, or that can secure that your land is taken for some purpose rather than the other fellow's—all these patronages have been quiet, clean and decent; but if now, in these days, political patronage is used for the sake of getting sixpence extra out of the public funds for a starving man, there is something that is not right there; and it might influence votes. My one regret is that these concerns have not influenced votes among working people to the extent that they should have influenced votes. The hon. Gentleman who acts as Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Minister has not yet fully learned that, when he takes on that responsible position, he has to give up certain of the rights and liberties that are available to ordinary Members of the House. He has assumed responsibilities and dignities, and it is hardly in keeping with the dignity of those who sit in that position to mutter and laugh at their own jokes while a Member on his feet is trying to address the Minister.
I say that the patronage, as it is called, has never been patronage in the sense of the term in which it has been used in the past. I have just as much right
to stand here and argue about the unemployed man's money as I have to argue about an ordinary citizen's education. It is as much a matter of public policy, and my constituents have a perfect right to weigh up and judge me on my record of votes, including what I do or what I do not do for the unemployed. As far as I have seen, the defence of the unemployed man in season and out of season has not always been the most electorally advantageous thing that a Member of the House of Commons can do. If one wanted to curry favour, if one wanted political influence, one would espouse the cause of more powerful people than those who are the unfortunate and the outcasts of society. Therefore, I place these things on one side; the patronage argument has no weight with me. The argument that the men who will be on this board are superior in quality and capacity and knowledge to the average man who sits in the House of Commons I put aside as merely matter for jest. The effect of the working of these boards in the past has, as I have said, been indicated by a previous House in wiping out all these boards from Scottish administration.
I would put this further point, that a cost of £12,000 per annum is being imposed here for the establishment of a board of five or six men, when every one of us knows that in practice there will be one official who will do the work of that board. There will be one capable civil servant to do the real work. He will listen to their talk, he will go home, and he will draft out what they are going to do. He will come back to the next meeting—which will occur as seldom as possible—and he will say, "This is a summary of what you decided at the last meeting; I ask you to endorse it." They will say, "Yes, it seems quite reasonable and moderate. It is getting on for lunch-time. Yes, we will endorse it." The Noble Lady behind me questions whether that would be done——

Viscountess ASTOR: No—whether Labour meetings were like that.

Mr. MAXTON: It is a very long time since I have been at a Labour meeting, but I can assure the Noble Lady that when my party meets we are bright, brief and brotherly, and to the point. I may be caricaturing the position. I have no doubt that for the first few
months, when we are all watching them, they will be much more assiduous and energetic than that; but that is what it will come to; it is what all their predecessors came to. There will be one official doing the job, thanking his stars that he has such a soft job; and he will have five or six members of this Committee whom he can just manipulate as he pleases, because he is on the job all the time, and knows the job, while they are only on the job occasionally, and do not know it and are not dependent on it. The Government are asking for the right to spend £12,000 of public money for the carrying out of a job which a civil servant would be glad to do competently for £1,000 a year. He, having done it, would have a real, genuine responsibility to his Minister, and his Minister would have a real, genuine responsibility to the House of Commons. On these grounds I urge the Minister not to take what looks like an easy road out of what is a very grave political difficulty, but to let the House of Commons know steadily and from day to day what the difficulties of the unemployed are, and let us shoulder them ourselves.

5.28 p.m.

Captain HAROLD BALFOUR: I shall not detain the Committee for more than two or three minutes, but I do not think the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) has quite justified himself in his speech this afternoon, for, while it was charming and delightful in its wording, it failed lamentably in logical argument. I do not think that the hon. Member really did justice to Scotland. He takes a particular instance in Scottish legislation in order to draw a general conclusion on British legislation. He takes the Scottish Office and says, "Look how badly we in Scotland have managed these boards; we had to admit failure"; and then he tries to put an equal failure on the English Parliament in English legislation. I should have thought he was a more loyal Scotsman than to let his own country down in order to try to prove a case. Again, he said that it did not always pay to defend the interests of the unemployed, and that had he, perhaps, pursued other courses, his political success could have been achieved in an easier manner——

Mr. MAXTON: No; I said I could think of much more profitable ways than defending the unemployed.

Captain BALFOUR: It is for the community to defend their unemployed. The hon. Member may mean that other things would be more profitable politically; but it may be that the eclipses which have fallen upon our party have been just because we have been seeking the genuine interest of the unemployed, and not the opportunity of the moment.
The point with which I want to deal is one that was made by the hon. Member for East Birkenhead (Mr. White), and also by the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. A. Bevan)—a point about which there seems to me to be a certain amount of misunderstanding among the electors and also in the House of Commons. It is as to the lack of attraction of Part I of the Bill because of the attractions which exist for men who are out of employment in Part II of the Bill. That is the general condemnation. I would submit that under Part I of the Bill there are certain aspects which must appeal, and which therefore do away to some extent with that lack of balance between the two about which complaint is made. In the first place, under this Clause in Part II of the Bill, the unemployed man cannot draw benefit as of right; he has to pass a means test; and the very Members who complain of the lack of similarity between Part I and Part II are the same Members who complain of the existence of a means test. It seems to me that they cannot have it both ways—they cannot complain of a means test on the one hand and then say on the other hand that there is no difference as regards drawing benefit between Part I and Part II, which is a contradiction in itself. Secondly, benefits under Part I accumulate to a man according to his industrial record, but under Part II his industrial record is of no avail to him. Under Part II he draws according to his need. Under Part I he draws according to his need and to his history. Finally, under Part I there are three contributors, the State, the employer and the employé, but only one person gets the benefit of any surplus, that is the contributor, whereas under Part II the man draws according to his need, and has no participation in the surplus. Therefore, this
complaint of the unattractiveness of Part I as against Part II is not borne out, firstly on the ground of no means test in Part I, secondly, no benefits according to a man's record in Part II, and thirdly, because the disposable assets of a solvent, self-sufficient fund go to the participants in that fund under Part I, and cannot do so under Part II. Therefore, I whole-heartedly support this differentiation between Part I and Part II, and I do not think there is any real gravamen in the complaint of Members who make this point.

5.32 p.m.

The MINISTER of LABOUR (Sir Henry Betterton): I think it has been to the general satisfaction and convenience of the Committee that your predecessor in the Chair, Sir, decided to allow the discussion to cover the whole purpose of this very important Clause, and in the result we have had, last week and to-day, one of the most important and, I think, interesting discussions that the Bill has produced since it was first introduced. I wish I could agree with the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) that the Bill, when it passes, will make the road easy for the Minister of Labour. I am under no such delusion. The road of the Minister of Labour is never an easy one and I do not think it will be any more easy when the Bill is passed than it was before. The hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Mallalieu), and others who spoke from Liberal benches last week, seemed to think that the result of the Bill would be to rid Members of Parliament of personal responsibility. So far from that, I believe it will increase the responsibility of individual Members to a far greater extent than at present, and perhaps it will enable hon. Members to show whether they are really willing and prepared to face up to the responsibilities which will be cast upon them by the Bill.
The first great point that has been raised in this discussion—it is the question which has occupied most of the proceedings to-day—is the general point as to whether we are right or wrong in taking away from local authorities duties which they now perform. Those duties have been with local authorities for something like 300 years, and I agree that it needs a strong case to satisfy the Committee that they should be taken from
them and transferred to someone else. I will explain the reasons which prompted us to come to the very grave decision. It was done in furtherance of the principle to which I referred in my Second Reading speech, that the State should accept general responsibility for all the industrial able-bodied unemployed outside insurance within the limits of a practical definition.
I will pay my tribute to the work which local authorities as a whole have done during the last three years. There was cast upon them in 1931 an immense accession of duties which were very often distasteful, unpopular and very difficult, but local authorities on the whole faced up to the difficulties, and the State as a whole is under a great debt of obligation to them. We asked them to deal with that very large number of persons who were then on transitional benefit. Before 1931 the numbers of persons with whom local authorities dealt were far fewer than those with whom they were asked to deal in 1931. In that year they were suddenly faced with the problem of organising a service for people in many cases quite indistinguishable, both in status and in character, from those who were actually in employment. There was this further difficulty. Unemployment is very largely concentrated in certain trades and in certain districts, and the difficulties of those local authorities in those areas was enormously increased by this fact.
It seems to me and to the Government that, if the State is to accept a general responsibility for the industrial unemployed, and to find the money for this purpose, the machinery can be no longer local but must be central. For long past there has been a demand, which has been growing in all parties, in all parts of the House, and in the country, that this should be a national responsibility. To that demand we have acceded except to an infinitesimal extent. The figure that the Chancellor of the Exchequer gave the other day was that 95 per cent. of this financial responsibility is now to be undertaken by the Exchequer. If you accede to the demand that this is a national responsibility, as an inevitable corrollary you must admit that the administration must be organised centrally and not locally.
When this immense duty was thrown upon the local authorities—I say this as
a matter of history, without criticism or comment; I merely state the facts—a few threw in their hands. Some sub-committees of local authorities refused to carry out their duties, and special committees were appointed in their place. In other areas members of one political party said they would have nothing to do with it, and they left the odium of carrying on the duties to others. In many areas the local authorities made it clear that they were only content to carry on at all because they were given to understand that the job was a temporary one, and they made it equally clear that, if they thought that it was to be anything like a permanent duty, they, too, would have something to say about it.
We had representations from very influential bodies dealing with this very point. The County Councils Association on 15th December, 1932, passed a resolution that, "with a view to preserving the purity of local government, it is undesirable that elected members of local authorities should be charged with distributing to individuals by way of unemployment assistance large sums of money mainly drawn from the national Exchequer." On 11th January, 1933, they passed a resolution in which they said that they were "generally in favour of the recommendations of the Committee on Local Expenditure that the relief of the able-bodied unemployed, whether now receiving transitional payments or public assistance should cease to be administered by local authorities as at present, and should be transferred to independent persons to be specially appointed for the purpose. This proposal, as the Committee on Local Expenditure points out, is directed to the removal from the sphere of national and local politics of the disbursement of local funds for the relief of the unemployed." The Association of Municipal Corporations, while saying they were prepared in certain conditions to carry on, added that they believed it would be "desirable that the administration of unemployment assistance should, so far as possible consistently with administrative efficiency and considerations of economy, be removed from the sphere of local party politics." We had to consider these facts, but whatever view you may take as to whether the County Councils Association were right or wrong, we have also to consider that by far the largest part of the cost is borne by the Exchequer.
I do not think that either this or any other Government could possibly approve, as a permanent arrangement, a system whereby a locally elected authority administered transitional payments on behalf of the central Government without any financial interest themselves in the expenditure. Such a system involves either the danger of abuse or else such a stringent control over local authorities that they become merely the agents of the central Government. For these reasons it seemed to us, having accepted the view that this liability should be a national one, that it followed as a necessary corollary that it could no longer be administered locally. My hon. Friend the Member for Oldham (Mr. Crossley) raised a point which has not been sufficiently stressed in the course of this discussion. The functions of the board will not be, and are not intended to be, limited entirely to the payment of cash assistance. The functions of the board are to link up where it can unemployment with employment, to help men to get into employment, and in the meantime to give them such assistance as their needs require. If hon. Members regard this problem, as I do, as an industrial problem and not merely one of relief, and as a national problem and not a local problem, clearly local authorities, with their limited areas of jurisdiction, are not the appropriate bodies to administer the scheme. So much for the point as to the reason why we take it away from the local authorities.
The next point to which I want to refer is one which has been made on more than one occasion, namely, the opinion that we are handing this matter over to a body outside Parliamentary control. This seems to show a complete misapprehension as to what is in the Bill, and I am surprised that it has been stated in quarters where I should not have expected it. The hon. Member for Birkenhead, East (Mr. White) went so far as to say that we are reproducing the action of 1834. He must indeed have a poor opinion of the Minister of Labour if he thinks that in 1934 I am going to reproduce a system which I know as well as he knows broke down. What happened in 1834 which he says is the analogy and example which we are following? In 1834 a Board of Commissioners was set up entirely independent of Parliament and was placed in the charge of, I suppose,
one of the ablest administrators this country has ever produced, Sir George Lewis. The experiment failed because this country would not tolerate an outlying department which was not subject to Parliamentary control, and they were right. It lasted 13 years, and then failed. If the country would not stand it then, believe me, they will not stand it now. I entirely agree with what the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) said when he remarked, "You cannot take, and you ought not to take, the problem of unemployment out of politics." You cannot do it, and this Bill will not do it. I do not think that I need proceed further to show how false is that analogy.

Mr. A. BEVAN: What Parliamentary control have we?

Sir H. BETTERTON: This Bill provides precisely the opposite principle. It gives this House a greater control over the expenditure of money on relief than it has ever had before. The way in which Parliament faces up to these responsibilities will be a very great test of our democratic institutions. I will explain what the Bill does. It provides that the needs of an applicant shall be assessed in accordance with Regulations made under the Act. It further provides that the Minister shall submit those Regulations to this House. He may either do it as recommended by the board, or he may do it with variations, but the Regulations will not be operative, under the terms of the Bill, until they have been affirmed and approved by a substantive Resolution of this House. The Committee may remember that the other day, when we were discussing the Anomalies Regulations, I amended the Anomalies Act of the late Labour Government by including among the Regulations which had to receive an affirmative Resolution of this House a Regulation made under the Anomalies Act.
That is not all. It is not only upon Regulations that this House will be in a position to express its voice by affirmative Resolution. Throughout the Bill you will find that Rules have to be made which have to be affirmed by the Minister. Those Rules have to be laid on the Table of this House, and the Minister is responsible for them. The opportunities of discussing the Minister's conduct will be exactly the same as they are now. They
can be discussed on the Minister's Vote, on the salaries of the boards officers, and on the presentation of the board's annual report. On every one of those occasions the House will have the fullest opportunity of expressing its views upon the actions of the board.
The third point to which I wish to refer is the charge that the individual applicant has in some way lost his rights, that his right to approach Members of Parliament has been altered. It has not been altered in the very least. It is exactly the same now as it was before. At present an applicant for transitional payments has to show that he is free from certain disqualifications and has fulfilled certain conditions of the insurance scheme. The question whether those conditions are fulfilled or whether disqualification has taken place is, as the Committee know, a matter for the statutory authorities, that is, the court of referees and the Umpire. When I am asked, as I am constantly, whether I will look into this case or the other, my answer invariably is—and the answer of every Minister of Labour has been, and must be—that it is a matter for the statutory authorities over which I have no control.

Mr. A. BEVAN: The right hon. Gentleman is slurring over the main issue. The applicant for benefit has control over the body which assesses his transitional payment. I think that the Minister should deal with that point.

Sir H. BETTERTON: If the claim of an applicant is challenged owing to certain alleged disqualifications, or owing to a charge that certain conditions have not been fulfilled, his case goes to the statutory authorities, over whom I have no more control than the hon. Gentleman who interrupted me. In the case of the individual assessment, the amount is assessed by the local authority. Their decision is final as far the Minister is concerned. If I am asked whether I agree with this assessment or the other, I say with perfect truth, that I have no power, nor indeed has the Minister of Health, to issue any directions or to give any orders to the local authorities.

Mr. LOGAN: In regard to the repeal of the Act of 1834, am I to understand that, if this particular board refuse to give an applicant any money or relief, he has no right under the law of the land to apply to the Poor Law for relief?

Sir H. BETTERTON: As the hon. Gentleman has raised the question of the Act of 1834, I should like to give him a considered answer. I should like time to think it over.

Mr. LOGAN: rose.

Sir H. BETTERTON: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will tell me afterwards. The present position, therefore, is that these questions are entirely outside the control of Members of Parliament. Under the Bill the applicant will have the same rights as he has now, and his position is not being prejudiced in the least. At the present time any Member can raise any question of principle upon the application of an insured person, and his position under the Bill will be exactly the same. He can raise questions of principle in this House in the future, as has been done in the past. I shall not be responsible for individual decisions in future any more than I am now.

Mr. BATEY: Other Ministers were responsible before you were appointed.

Sir H. BETTERTON: The hon. Member goes back a very long way. I do not remember to what period he is referring.

Mr. BATEY: It is only since the present Government came in.

Sir H. BETTERTON: It was certainly so during the time of the Labour administration.
I wish to deal with the second Sub-section of this Clause to which reference was made last week, but about which nothing has been said this afternoon. It deals with the advisory committees. There was misapprehension in the minds of some hon. Gentlemen as to what were to be the duties of the advisory committees, and what it was contemplated they should do. My right hon. Friend the Member for Hastings (Lord E. Percy) seemed to think that the advisory committees had some separate function. I do not in the least agree. The object of including the advisory committees is, if possible, to bring within the machinery the assistance of non-official persons. The advisory committees will be established throughout the country, and will continuously bring to bear upon the work of the board the knowledge of persons who have had very long experience of these problems. Their general functions will include advice on the appropriate
local and general differentiation of scales in their area, for instance, the differentiation of scales between, say, certain urban areas and certain rural areas. They will advise on local differentiation and on certain local factors, such as the influence of rent on need. They will be a link between State assistance and local assistance and voluntary organisations in the area. They will assist the board upon the various specialised services which are available in the locality, both public and private.

The CHAIRMAN (Sir Dennis Herbert): I did not interrupt the right hon. Gentleman before, because I was not present during the earlier part of this Debate, but he now seems to be getting rather beyond the Amendment.

Sir H. BETTERTON: I am referring to this matter and answering the point because it was one of the points made when the question of the usefulness of these committees which are set out in the third Sub-section was referred to. I thought that I might be allowed to deal with this case, which was referred to at some length last week.

The CHAIRMAN: It was definitely in my mind that the right hon. Gentleman might be dealing with something debated while I was not here, and I agree. That is the reason why I made the remark I did when I first interrupted the right hon. Gentleman.

Sir H. BETTERTON: I am much obliged. My only reason for doing it is that I thought it would be fair to the Committee, as the point was raised, to give my views as to what those committees will do. I think that this Clause will turn out to be one of the most useful in the whole of the Bill, because these committees will give most valuable help to the officers of the board in carrying out their duties. They will be useful in securing co-ordination between a number of other services in the area, such as child welfare, work in connection with tuberculosis, the blind, hospital assistance, and so on. In addition to these general services the committee will have certain special services to perform, including the giving of advice to the local officers of the board on difficult individual cases. That is a most important thing when the board have to
deal with difficult individual cases. There will be households, as hon. Members who have had experience of these things will know, where some specialised remedial treatment is what the applicant wants, and that treatment is outside the province of the board, as such. I think the committees will perform very valuable services in enlisting local effort in cases of this kind. Therefore, the inclusion of the Sub-section was an attempt well worth making. Under it we hope to retain the services and experience of very many men and women up and down the country who have devoted their lives to this kind of work and whose services I am determined shall not be lost in the future.

Mr. DINGLE FOOT: Can the right hon. Gentleman give the Committee some idea as to how large the committees will be and as to the kind of area in which they will function? Will it be the Employment Exchange area or the regional area?

Miss RATHBONE: Is it suggested that all the cases that are assessed will go before the Advisory Committees or only cases of special difficulty? The right hon. Gentleman referred to cases where special remedial action was necessary, which seemed to imply that the committees will have to deal with individual cases. Will they have to pass all cases or will they deal only with cases specially referred to them?

Sir H. BETTERTON: They will not pass all cases. The function of these committees will be to advise the board in such cases as I have indicated where their advice is likely to be useful to the board. The hon. Member for Dundee (Mr. D. Foot) asked me how large they will be. That, again, is entirely a question for the board, but I should anticipate that there will be large area committees, with sub-committees in different places. That is how I contemplate the system will work. My object is to put at the disposal of the board the experience of the many thousands of people who can help the board in its work.

6.5 p.m.

Mr. ARTHUR GREENWOOD: When the Debate was resumed this afternoon we had a speech from the hon. Member
for Ebbw Vale (Mr. A. Bevon). To that speech we have had no reply from the Minister. My hon. Friend put the case which we have against the statutory body which is being set up under Part II of the Bill. The Government have chosen to deal with the problem by appointing an Unemployment Assistance Board to deal with a certain category of the unemployed. The very fact that the right hon. Gentleman is differentiating between certain classes of unemployed persons, allowing some of them for a limited period to enjoy certain statutory rights without let or hindrance and segregating the rest, appears to us to mean that those who come under Part II are not going to receive as generous treatment as the people who come under Part I. I think it is clear that that is so.
If the Government had desired to treat all the unemployed alike there would have been no need for this Unemployment Assistance Board and the vast machinery which is to be set up. They could have been dealt with under unemployment insurance. The right hon. Gentleman referred to the Poor Law of 1834. The Poor Law Board of 1834 broke down after a few years, and in 1934 the right hon. Gentleman is perpetuating the Poor Law Board of 1934 in a very pernicious and even more intensified form. The implication is that if a person is out of work in a given year for more than 26 weeks there is something wrong with that person. We take the view that unemployment to-day is not a problem of individual failings but a problem of industry and the economic system. It is a matter of accident which men are out of work for four months and which men are out of work for four years. This Bill draws that distinction, for the one reason that after that limited period of 26 weeks it seeks to introduce less eligible conditions, more onerous conditions, partly for the purpose of economy and in order to make a distinction between those who are newly out of work and those who have been out of work a long time and, no doubt, with the object of driving them back into some kind of employment. That is not a new policy.
The last Conservative Government took power to abolish boards of guardians, not where they were unduly mean towards the poor, but because in the opinion of the Minister of Health at that time they were a little too generous to the poor.
It was not, perhaps, astonishing that that power was never used to force reactionary boards of guardians who were paying a scandalously low rate of relief to the destitute, to raise their rates. The power was used only against certain boards of guardians, Labour boards of guardians, whose political complexion and whose care for the poor the present Chancellor of the Exchequer, then Minister of Health, did not like. In the last two years we have seen two local authorities superseded by commissioners, one in Rotherham and the other in the County of Durham, not because they were bringing down the standard of relief to the unemployed, but because they were too generous for the present Minister of Labour.
We are getting now a generalised system of commissioners all over the country for the people who come under Part II. Instead of having commissioners in Rotherham and Durham, we are to have a board of commissioners sitting in London, with vast machinery and officers up and down the country and a large number of advisory committees, about which the right hon. Gentleman seems to know very little at the moment. They are to be a great commission for the nation, in order to impose upon the people who are not under Part I of the Act conditions which are less favourable than the conditions under Part I. In other words, the whole purpose of Part II is to bring down the level of maintenance of those who have been unemployed for a considerable period. The Government are going to hand over to a new bureaucracy the care of the most unfortunate victims of the economic system. That is what makes the personnel, the powers and the responsibilities of the board important.
We have heard arguments about the wickedness of this question being a matter of politics. As I have said before, you cannot keep poverty, hunger and destitution out of politics. It was such questions that brought the Labour party into existence. The question of unemployment and all that follows unemployment go down to the very roots of our national problem. It is all very well for the Government to say that they want to take this question out of politics. They would take everything out of politics
if they could, because politics are becoming far more real than they were in the days of the Tories and the Whigs. Everything was in politics then, but now when we get particularly thorny questions which bring members of the old orthodox parties up against the realities of life, they want to take them out of politics. They want to take this question out of politics by the appointment of a board of this kind. The Government may think, and hon. Members who support the Government may think, that by doing that they are getting themselves out of an awkward difficulty, but they are not.
This kind of Fascist dictatorship applied to a section of the unemployed is bound to create its reactions. I never believed in the old Poor Law system. I believe, what the right hon. Gentleman was at pains to point out, no doubt to convince his own followers and not us, that unemployment ought to be a national responsibility. I have always believed that. But I have never believed that you can remove from this House the responsibilities of the Members of this House. That is what the Bill in effect seeks to do. Nor do I think you ought in any circumstances to remove from a body of citizens the right to appeal to their own elected representatives. That is what is done under Part II. This is a form of dictatorship. It is no use the right hon. Gentleman talking about regulations coming to this House and being approved by the House, and about rules being confirmed by him and he being responsible for them to this House, where discussion can take place. The point is that we shall have no more right to put a question at the Table on the action of any member of the board than we have to put a question on the action of a High Court Judge. We are removing these people, who will be dealing day by day with the lives of the poor, entirely outside the control of elected persons. We may have academic discussions from time to time, but they will be like the academic discussions about the British Broadcasting Corporation. In those discussions we have not been able to deal with the realities of the problem, because the British Broadcasting Corporation has its powers under a Charter.
What are these people to be? They are to be appointed by Royal Warrant, as independent of this House and of the
Minister as judges of the High Court. They are not to interpret law; they are not to deliver judgment as between disputants, however important the question may be. They are to determine the kind of life that unemployed persons shall live. That is a big power which ought never to be vested in a body of people who are completely outside public control and responsible public criticism. In these circumstances hon. Members opposite ought to consider the wisdom of pursuing this kind of policy. What is it? When on the Second Reading of the Bill I said that this perpetuated the Poor Law system, that it bureaucratised the Poor Law system, I was met with the jeers of hon. Members opposite. But my statement was true. You will have a small body of people in London given the powers that the Commissioners are enjoying to-day in Durham and Rotherham, and indeed increased powers, not making them completely responsible, but in a way that is new to me—I am not a lawyer—giving the officers of the board certain powers, and not even making the board itself responsible for the actions of its own officers. In other words it is extending the dictatorship and bureaucracy into the country, setting up Commissars in every area, where there is to be an advisory committee, and appointing advisory committees which may or may not be used. If they are likely to be amenable to the board they will be used, but in counties like Durham, where they are not likely to be amenable, the advisory committees will not be used.

Mr. MOLSON: Why does the right hon. Gentleman say that the board will not be responsible for the actions of its own officers?

Mr. GREENWOOD: There are Clauses in the Bill under which certain definite responsibilities and obligations are placed on the officers of the board. They are obligations which in normal legislation would have been vested in the board, and not in its officers, and the board would have been responsible for the actions of its officers. In certain later Clauses definite responsibilities are put on the officers. The officers are not to be the instruments of the board acting for the board. There is no local authority to protect the applicant. It may be
that there is an advisory committee, which may or may not be used, but it will be used for difficult cases in what I may call easy areas from the point of view of the Government. In effect it will be a vast bureacracy all over the country. That is a form of dictatorship. My hon. Friend who spoke on this subject was perfectly right.
Only a week or two ago I read an article on how local government would work under Fascism, and I gathered that the Fascists would dispense with the Manchester City Council and let the Members of Parliament for the city act as the Commissars of the Government. This is precisely on all fours with this proposal, except in one respect, that at least the Members of Parliament are elected. But the board sitting in London, and the officers whom they appoint, and the advisory committee whom they appoint, will not be responsible to the public either locally or nationally. I think that the proposal is fraught with the gravest danger. The attempt that the Minister has made to defend it has completely failed. I know that we shall be beaten in the Divisional Lobby, but hon. Members opposite will repent the day when they voted for this Bill.

6.22 p.m.

Mr. JAMES REID: I would like to deal with the line of attack which has been summed up by the right hon. Member for Wakefield (Mr. Greenwood). His attack divides itself into two parts. His main attack is not directed to this Clause at all, but is directed at what he thinks lies behind the Clause. It seems to me that he depends on what may or may not turn out to be an intelligent prophecy, because his attack is not directed to anything in the Bill, but to what he anticipates the regulations will be and how those regulations will be administered. His attack on the Clause itself is purely subsidiary. His speech was entirely coloured by the view that this part of the Bill is to be used in order to lower the standard of the present administration of transitional payments. He seems to think that nothing more can ever be given, but that a great deal less will be given. There is nothing whatever in the Bill to lend any colour to the assertion. What will happen of course, is, that certain people who have means of their own will not get so much as the people under Part I, and that other people who
have no means of their own, whose clothes or boots, it may be, have worn out, will require more than the people under Part I, and there is provision in the Bill by which they can get it. I have not the least doubt that in those cases, more will be given that under Part I.
It is entirely premature and wrong to start criticising this Clause from the point of view that in no circumstances will anyone get more than the Part I benefit. Part I benefit is not even adjusted on the basis of need; it is adjusted, as it should be, on the basis of what a certain fund can pay, while remaining solvent. It has nothing whatever to do with means, but with obligations of a contractual nature. Suppose that the situation gets worse and Part I benefits have to be reduced. Obviously, it will be necessary in many cases to supplement Part I benefits out of Part II. Suppose that the situation gets much better, and that Part I benefits are increased. The necessity to supplement will disappear.
Even the minority report of the Royal Commission looks towards nothing except the restoration of the 1931 cuts. Once those cuts are restored, as we all hope they will be very shortly when things get better, the necessity for supplementing will be completely gone. At the present time there may be in certain cases a necessity for supplementing Part I out of Part II, and there is ample provision in the Bill for that to be done. I do not propose to detain the Committee in arguing further on the main charge brought by the right hon. Gentleman, namely that the standard of the unemployed is to be dragged down under this Bill. We must wait and see in order to determine whether that prophecy is or is not accurate. It is useless to discuss now what may happen in a few months' time. My view is that a very different picture will then be presented.
Let me come to the second part of the right hon. Gentleman's attack, the attack on the Clause itself. It is said that this and the following Clauses will have the effect of taking this question out of politics. It will not have anything of the kind. If it did, I would not support it. But it will take the question out of local politics. But I always understood it was a cardinal principle of the Labour party that this should be a national matter. I am sure that no one, even in despair in the search for arguments with
which to beat the Government would use the argument that the whole charge is to be put on the nation, but that the whole of the administration is to be put into the hands of locally-elected representatives. Not even the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. A. Bevan) would say that. He came near it, but I do not think he meant it. I am glad to see he shakes his head. That being so, we are all agreed that this matter ought to be taken out of the hands of locally-elected representatives.

Mr. A. BEVAN: The hon. Member should address himself to the arguments we advanced. The position we take up is simple. You transfer the obligation from the local authority to the State, but the local authority has an obligation to the local elector. You should transfer the right of the local elector at the same time as you would transfer the obligation.

Mr. REID: I am trying to go step by step. The first step is that we are all agreed that the locally-elected person, the town councillor, should not have responsibility because the matter should be a national charge and the responsibility should be national. Then comes the question, who is to be responsible from the centre; is it to be this House as a body, is it to be the Minister, is it to be someone immediately subject to the Minister, or is it to be this board? I look at the board to see whether its functions as described in the Bill are such as hon. Members opposite think, and whether the powers are so divorced from the Minister and this House as hon. Members suggest. What are the functions of the Board? How far are they controlled?
The first function of the board is to frame the regulations under which the whole of this procedure is to be carried out. Those regulations have to be submitted to the Minister, and the Minister has full power to amend them in any way he likes. Accordingly the Government have full power over every jot and tittle of the regulations. It is true that this House has not got the actual power of amendment. Personally, if I had the preference, I think we might have a little more power in that way. But let us look at the essentials and not the form. The essence of the matter is that the Minister holds his office at the will of the House.
If this House does not like the way in which the Minister has amended the regulations, this House can not only throw out the regulations, but the Minister in effect. Accordingly it seems to me that in the present circumstances this is really much more a matter of form than of substance. As far as the form is concerned, I would rather have a wider power directly given to the House of Commons, but when we come to the substance below the form, I do not think there is a great deal in it.

Mr. A. BEVAN: If this Bill were framed in accordance with the sort of procedure which the hon. Member is defending we would not have the privilege of listening to the speech which he is now making.

Mr. REID: If we were dealing with Committee points in Committee we certainly would not have a speech like this, but, as the hon. Member well knows, we are really having a Second Reading Debate. The procedure of the House of Commons is sufficiently elastic to meet any emergency and it will be elastic enough to deal with the Minister, if he does not do what the House of Commons desires. Accordingly, before the regulations become operative there is absolute control by the House of Commons. The regulations may require to be amended as time goes on because, if hard cases develop as the machinery grows, the right way of dealing with them is not to deal with each hard case individually but to amend the regulations so that hard cases shall cease.
There is a small point here which might, I respectfully suggest, be considered by the Government. At present, amendment of the regulations can only be proposed by the Board, but once the Board do propose any amendments, the Minister may make any alternative suggestion he thinks fit. Considering that power is in the Minister's hands to that extent, I do not understand why he should not recommend to the Board such regulations as he would like to see and get the Board's report on them just as he can do under Part I of the Bill. I think there is room for a slight change in that respect. Again, the new regulations must be approved by the Minister and they must be approved by the House of Commons before they can come into operation. So much for the regula-
tions. They are completely under the control of the House.
Let us now come to the individual case which is just as much dependent on how the regulations are administered as on the terms of the regulations themselves. We want in administering regulations, not a body susceptible to pressure from electors, but a body which is going to administer impartial justice. By all means place the framing of the regulations in the hands of persons susceptible to pressure from electors. That is a legislative function, and legislative functions ought to be carried out by people who are responsible to their constituents. But when it comes to the administration, under the regulations, of particular cases, that is a judicial function. We in this country know, from hundreds of years of history, that one reason why our system of Government has proved so permanent is that the judiciary has been entirely out of the control of the politician. I hope that hon. Members opposite will reconsider their attitude on this point. I know that they want complete control over the regulations, and I think that we ought to have it. Whichever side has a majority will get such regulations as they want. But once the regulations are established, do they think that different measures of justice ought to be given to different people, because one man can pull the strings and another man cannot?

Mr. A. BEVAN: The hon. Member makes the astounding suggestion that the unemployment assistance officer, who is remote from control by anyone at all, will be perfectly impartial in his treatment of his neighbours, whereas the public man, after years of public-spirited work, will not be so impartial?

Mr. REID: I am trying to go step by step. Unless I completely misunderstood what he said earlier, the hon. Member wanted control of this matter left in the hands of elected persons in order that the man who came up for a judicial determination of his claim should be able to bring pressure on the judge to decide in his favour.

Mr. BEVAN: To use the term "judicial" in this connection is entirely improper, because the whole matter will be a question of assessment of need without any objective Statute to which to refer, except of course the general regulations.

Mr. REID: I will take the word "impartial" if the hon. Member prefers it.

Mr. BEVAN: Either "impartial" or "judicial."

Mr. REID: Then what the hon. Member wants is a partial tribunal which is susceptible to pressure?

Mr. BEVAN: The House of Commons.

Mr. REID: I have just explained to the hon. Member that in my view, though it may not be his view, the proper function of the House of Commons is legislation, and not to administer the law in particular cases.

Mr. BEVAN: The House of Commons which wishes to give 3s. to a child instead of 2s. is then regarded as being a partial assembly—to the child?

Mr. REID: Really I wish the hon. Member would try to follow the argument. I know he finds it a little difficult——

Mr. BEVAN: No, not at all. It is the hon. Member who is in the hole.

Mr. REID: I was about to say that he finds it a little difficult to follow the argument because of the strength of his prejudices, but if he will give me his attention for one moment I shall try to make it plain to him. He has raised the question of the 3s. Now there are two points involved there. The first question which arises is: Is the general scale to be 3s. or not? That is the general question on which the House of Commons ought to give its opinion. That is a question of legislation and the House must determine whether the figure of 3s. or 2s., or some other method of assessment, is to go into the regulations. But, when it comes to the assessment of a particular case, assuming that 3s. is in the regulations, the question arises whether the child in the circumstances of that particular household requires 3s. or a smaller sum. Those circumstances have to be evaluated in terms of the regulations, and I say that that ought to be done by an impartial person who is not subject to the pressure of the parent's vote.

Mr. BEVAN: And that is democracy.

Mr. REID: Then the hon. Member opposite takes this view—that the person to determine the meaning of the regulations in that case, is a person whose coat-tails are being pulled by certain voters.

Mr. BEVAN: What has been going on for 300 years?

Mr. REID: Therefore, according to his view the man who has the biggest pull will get 3s. and the man who has less pull will only get 2s. 6d., and the man who has least pull will only get 2s. or nothing at all?

Mr. BEVAN: Exactly.

Mr. REID: That is the way the hon. Member wants this to be carried out?

Mr. BEVAN: May I point out to the hon. Member that it is that portion of the electorate which has the greatest power and the greatest knowledge of its own self-interest that gets its majority here to look after its interests, and all democratic representation is a tug-of-war, where coat-tail pulling goes on, either by the poor or by the Income Tax payer? That is the whole meaning of democracy.

Mr. REID: I do hope that the last words which have fallen from the hon. Member will become the classic definition of the Labour party's idea of democracy.

Mr. BEVAN: There is no humbug in it—yours is the humbug.

Mr. REID: I shall pass from that if I may, and try to develop my argument. I submit to the Committee that the right way of dealing with this matter is to appoint an impartial person—I do not mind if you say a judicial person—who is not responsible to anybody. These people in the first instance are the officers of the board. I think hon. Members opposite are making a great mistake when they say that the board is responsible as far as individual cases are concerned. From first to last, the board does not deal with any individual case. An individual case cannot come before the board and all the bother that has been raised as to the board oppressing the individual is beside the point. The first person who deals with the individual case is an officer of the board. His salary is on the Votes. We are entitled to question in any way we choose. The board it is true are on the Consolidated Fund—why I do not understand—but that does not affect the individual case at all.
If the individual is dissatisfied with the boards officer, he goes to the appeal tribunal. It is true that the appeal tribunal has a certain say, perhaps too much,
before they allow an appeal to be taken, but the tribunal is not responsible to the board and it is not the creature of the board. The board's representative on the appeal tribunal is in a minority. The appeal tribunal consists of three. The chairman is directly appointed by the Minister—the Minister is responsible for who is appointed and in a general way for how the chairman behaves himself. Secondly there is a person appointed as the representative of the workers from a panel settled by the Minister. The board it is true select out of the panel, but they cannot put on anybody of their own volition. They have to take such representatives of the workers as the Minister puts on the panel. There is only one person out of three members of the tribunal directly appointed by the board. The chairman who has the important function of determining which appeals shall be allowed and which shall not, has nothing to do with the board at all. He is the appointee of the Minister; his salary is on the Votes and the board have no more to do with him than I have. To say that the board is in any measure responsible for meting out justice to the individual, shows a complete misapprehension of the case. I should have thought if anybody was going to be on the Consolidated Fund it would be the appeal tribunal because they are carrying out judicial functions but for obvious reasons that has not been done.

Mr. DINGLE FOOT: Does the hon. Member say that it is a judicial body?

Mr. REID: In hearing appeals they are carrying out functions of a judicial character because they have to determine, first, whether the terms of the regulations have been observed and, secondly, whether there are special circumstances in the particular case before them. The first is a purely judicial function; the second, I agree, is quasi-administrative.

Mr. FOOT: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the court of referees under the present Insurance Act has been held not to be a judicial but an administrative body, and does he say that the appeal tribunal under this Measure will be in a different position?

Mr. REID: No, it will not be, in the technical sense, a judicial body. It is not on the Consolidated Fund for one
thing. It will be, in the technical sense, administrative, but it is nevertheless, a body which is carrying out judicial functions, and it ought to be regarded from that point of view.

Mr. COCKS: Without safeguards?

Mr. REID: I should have thought that the safeguard desired by the hon. Member would be to have the salary on the Votes and not on the Consolidated Fund. From his point of view I should think that was a safeguard, and it is one which he would not have in the case of the ordinary judiciary. Accordingly, the individual case is really at the mercy of the appeal tribunal. That is a body which is composed, so far as the majority are concerned, of nominees of the Minister. It is true that once the Minister has appointed them they have a certain security of tenure, but I do not think anyone would object to that. The Minister is responsible for whom he appoints, for the policy which he pursues in appointing members to this panel, and it seems to me that there is ample Parliamentary control over the detailed administration from day to day of these appeals. Therefore, I think that this Bill as framed, though I have suggested one or two points on which I think it might be framed slightly differently from the technical point of view, which would not make much difference in substance, retains complete control in the hands of this House both of the regulations and, though not quite so directly, of the individual case.
I know of no administration where the individual case receives any more complete control in fact from this House than the House can exercise under this Bill. It is the exception rather than the rule for an ex-service pension to be mentioned on the Floor of this House. The real control of the ex-service pension is not the right to put down a question on the Paper or the right to move a Motion on the Adjournment; the real control is on the Vote for the Minister's salary, and that is when the Debate, if there is to be a Debate, would naturally occur. You have a similar control here on the salary of the Minister of Labour, and when one looks at the substance behind this Bill—perhaps it does not appear so clearly on the surface—it seems to me that this House has the fullest
possible control, and I think the House should insist on that control and that it has got it.

6.48 p.m.

Mr. COVE: The hon. Member who has just sat down, if he has succeeded in anything at all, has succeeded in displaying the fact that he does not understand this Bill, and further he has left the main principles and tried to divert the attention of the Committee, if I may say so with respect, to fiddling little points which even he himself did not understand. I do not propose to follow him, except incidentally, in the course of my remarks, but I want, first, to say a word or two about the Minister. I thought that to-night we had from him a more perfunctory reply than we have usually had. It was obvious from his speech that his heart was not in his job, and he gave the impression that he did not believe a great deal of what he said. Anyone who has studied the provisions of this Bill is bound to have been struck, in the first place, by the profound pessimism that is embodied in it.
We have in this Bill two main proposals. The first is that there shall be an insurance scheme, or what is called an insurance scheme, but what is, after all, a merely empirical insurance scheme. Secondly, we have, as a counterpart of that, Part II, in order to try to bolster up Part I. We have Part II because it is evident, from a study of the evidence given before the Royal Commission, that the Government themselves have come to the conclusion that the period of cycles in trade revivals has gone. Anyone who has read the evidence will realise that in the past they have said "Good years might pay for bad years. The fund might get in debt for a period of time, but we look forward to a revival of trade, and during that period of revival we shall be able to wipe off the debt that was incurred." The Governments of all kinds which incurred the £115,000,000 debt had more faith in the industrial revival and future of this country than the present Government have.

The CHAIRMAN: We have allowed a very wide discussion of Part II on this Clause, but I am afraid the hon. Member in his remarks is almost developing into a Second Reading speech dealing largely with Part I.

Mr. COVE: I understood that we were to have a very wide Debate, but I want to emphasise the point that Part II of the Bill has behind it the recognition by the Government that there is a vast mass of our people who will never be able to have sufficient employment to bring them on to the insurance side of the scheme. They have abandoned hope for them, and, therefore, we have a scheme of this kind devised. It is quite clear from the speeches that we have had to-day that hon. Members are prepared to allow the board that is being set up to administer this side of the scheme because they themselves would not like to do it. There is no doubt that this board is an escape for hon. Members from the duties and obligations that they ought to carry in this House. The whole structure of Part II depends on the principle and the administration of the needs test. One would have thought, by listening to some of the speeches that we have heard to-day, that under Part II it would be possible and practicable for applicants to get more in relief than under Part I. Does anyone really believe that? The hon. Member for Stirling (Mr. James Reid) shakes his head, but he is much too innocent. Does anyone really believe that under Part II of this Bill applicants will be able to get more than under Part I?
I seem to have divined a confusion in the minds of hon. Members as to what the needs test really is, and I have the impression that hon. Members have been thinking like this: Here is a certain person or family whose needs are so and so, and, therefore, under this Part of the Bill, the human needs of these people will be met, because this is a judicial body. That is not the principle, and that will not be the practice. The principle of need here is not the principle of human need, of how much it needs to feed and clothe people, but how much and in what manner the State can escape its obligation for the maintenance of these people. The needs test under Part II is an income test, a family income test, and the right hon. Gentleman in this Bill is in effect saying, "How much can the National Exchequer escape of its obligation to pay these people sufficient money in order to maintain them?" The whole scheme of Part II is devised to throw upon the household
—the lodgers, the children, the husband, the wife—the obligation which the State ought to bear.
The effect will be that millions of our people will be plunged in poverty and pessimism of the direst kind. Millions of our people will be depressed. Part II is designed to push millions of people as near the verge of destitution as possible. There is no conception or desire in Part II to meet the real human needs of these people. Its whole conception is to drive them as near as possible to the edge of destitution, without any redress. "A judicial body," said the hon. Member, "will consider their cases." This board has no semblance of being a judicial body. There is none of the apparatus of a judicial body about it. Where is the right of the unemployed man or woman to have representation before this board, to plead his or her case? There is no such right provided. The board is to be completely away from both the human needs of the individual and the pressure and control of public opinion, and of Parliament in particular.
This is the modern form of dictatorship devised by the right hon. Gentleman the Minister, or rather, perhaps more truly, devised by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. We are throwing millions of people down into the abyss of poverty and hopelessness, and there is no intention except to save money out of this machinery. We shall, therefore, walk into the Lobby against these proposals, because they are inhuman and anti-democratic, and because they are the modern form of dictatorship in this country. You are depriving these people of all access to local and Parliamentary influence, and you are throwing them back to brood and to feel hopeless. I do not know what other hon. Members may think, but a vast mass of people like this, without hope, without being able to feel that they can redress their grievances, without any human touch—because this board will not have any human touch, and every individual case will be merely a case with a number to it. It will be remote from the needs of these people, and it will be divorced from Parliamentary and public control. For all these reasons I shall walk into the Lobby very pleased indeed to vote against such a proposal.

7.0 p.m.

Mr. DINGLE FOOT: I would like to make one or two observations on the last two speeches that we have heard from the other side of the House. First, there was the speech of the hon. Member for Stirling (Mr. J. Reid), who succeeded in stating in his opening remarks one of my principal objections to the Bill. He said that we must wait and see if the standard of the unemployed is to be dragged down. I took down his words at the time. Speaking for myself, one of my principal reasons for voting against this Bill on the Second Reading was, that it was impossible to tell from its terms whether the standard of the people coming under Part II was to be dragged down or not.

Mr. J. REID: May I ask my hon. Friend whether he considers, with those who sit on this bench, that a complete scale ought to be embodied in this Bill?

Mr. FOOT: Yes; a scale has been embodied in legislation before, and if it is not being embodied in the Bill we ought to have some assurance of what this scale will be. Every hon. Member is entitled to apply to every Measure that comes forward the test of how it will affect his own constituents. Those who represent constituencies are absolutely unable to tell whether their people on transitional benefit are to be better off or worse off under the regulations in Part II of the Bill. The hon. Member then went on to say that regulations should be carried out by judicial bodies, but that they should be framed by legislative bodies. Here the process is being reversed. The regulations will not, in the first place, be framed by a legislative body, and, in any case, where is your judicial body? The officers of the Unemployment Assistance Board are certainly not to be judicial persons. The appeal tribunal is not a judicial body. We may take the analogy of the court of referees; there is no sort of a guarantee that it will behave in a judicial manner. The fact is that, just like the function of the officers who at present administer unemployment insurance, this is an administrative function carried out by administrative bodies.
The hon. Member said that the function of this House should not be to administer the law in particular cases. I quite agree, but I suggest to him that it is the function of this House constantly
to review the administration of the law. Our objection to this Bill is that it makes it very difficult for us to review the administration of the law under Part II. The Minister told us in his speech that this Measure would give greater control over unemployment relief than this House has ever had before. That is perfectly obvious, because up till now the House has had no control whatever over unemployment relief, that is to say, over transitional payments. I say that the Minister was simply evading the point which has been made by hon. Members in this House in many speeches, that he is taking the control away from one elected authority without properly vesting it in another elected authority. He said that there were to be regulations, affirmed by this House. Those will be of little value if we are not allowed to amend them. There are a very large number of Members of this House who would not be prepared to take the responsibility of voting for the rejection for the whole of the regulations, though they might perfectly well be prepared to vote for an amendment to those regulations.
The right hon. Gentleman said that there were three occasions upon which these matters might be raised; the Vote on the Minister's salary, the Vote on the salary of the officers, and the board's annual report. I want to put this to the Minister. Suppose, say, in the month of November some individual coming under Part II of the Bill has a grievance against a determination by one of the officers of the board, and that the board's annual report is not coming out till February or March. The Vote on the Minister's salary is not likely to come up until about then, and suppose that a question is put down by the individual's Member of Parliament dealing with his particular case, will that Member not be told that he must wait until one of these occasions, the Vote on the Minister's salary or the annual report of the board, before he can raise this case? In other words, it might be months before he could get any answer from any Minister speaking from that Front Bench. The analogy was given of the case of pensions. At any rate we can put down a question and get an answer from the responsible Minister as to why a pension has been withheld in a particular case. The Minister is simply evading the preferment of the charge against this Bill,
and he himself admitted that he had no control over the statutory authority. I consider that the hon. Member for East Birkenhead (Mr. White) was absolutely justified when he said that the Government were taking these matters out of adequate Parliamentary control. Our most valuable function in this House is not simply to review politics from time to time; and that is what will be done when the annual report of the board is produced. Our most valuable function is our raising of individual grievances.
May I remind the Committee of something that will be within the recollection of every hon. Member present—the case of Flying Officer Fitzpatrick? There you have an individual citizen who has been, or is alleged to have been, maltreated by the police. The work of this House was held up while the matter was raised by an hon. Member, and the Home Secretary had to come down, explain what had been done and promise that the matter should be looked into by his Department. The unemployed man will not be in the same position under Part II of this Bill. I referred to this matter because it shows the value that still remains in our Parliamentary institutions. When the case of Flying Officer Fitzpatrick was being discussed, people in Germany were being mutilated, murdered or crowded into concentration camps, and there was nobody able to raise a word of protest. In this country the whole work of the House of Commons was held up for something like two hours because one citizen had been maltreated. That seems to me to show something of the value of Parliament and how great a safeguard this House still provides over the rights and liberties of the individual citizen. It is because you are removing something of this safeguard under Part II; because, though we may be able to review policy from time to time and to review matters on two or three fixed occasions in the year, we shall not be able to get an answer on the grievances of individual citizens, that some of us are against this Bill.

7.8 p.m.

Mr. HOROBIN: I wish to put one particular consideration to the Minister. I hope that, if I give it briefly, he will perhaps give it attention in inverse ration to the length of my speech. It arises naturally out of the extraordinarily interesting speech which the hon. Member
for Stirling (Mr. J. Reid) made a little time ago. I should not like to be thought in disagreement with the hon. Member, but he somewhat misled the Committee—and, far more important, his view of the matter might mislead the administration under Part II—by importing the word "judicial." There is no comparison in practice between the kind of decisions which will have to be taken by the officers of this board and judicial decisions. I sincerely hope that that conception of their duties will not be allowed to rise. Many hon. Members in the Committee and in the House—some for constitutional reasons, others because they are endeavouring to ensure larger payments to the unemployed, and some for various other reasons—seem to be pinning their faith to very elaborate and detailed regulations including facts and figures, and, if it is not too much to say so, to an automatic administration, at any rate to an almost automatic administration, by unskilled persons, just as, quite properly, payments are made under Part I at the present time. That opens up a terrible prospect. I am one of those who, like the right hon. Member for Tamworth (Sir A. Steel-Maitland), regrets Part II of this Bill in that it meekly abandons the very well-considered proposals of the Royal Commission. The Minister has made out a very good case, and there are obviously strong reasons for doing so. They could be answered, but it would be wasting the time of the Committee to do so now that the die is cast.
The right hon. Gentleman will, however, agree with me that, although he has set aside the recommendations of the Royal Commission; although he has set up this new machinery, there are lessons which we cannot afford to ignore written into the history of this country over some centuries. Whatever may be said of the other duties of the board, with regard to the payment of money, their duties are, in fact, a Poor Law problem. They are, in effect, out-relief for the able-bodied poor. All history shows that this is the Achilles' heel of the Poor Law. It may break down—or the shoe may pinch, if I may change my metaphor—through too harsh an administration. It may equally lead to most terrible results by a lax administration, which—this is the point that I particularly wish to put to the Minister—nearly always begins by a well-meaning
and humane desire to apply, quickly and fairly and automatically, a scale or a regulation which has been laid down, and by turning away, either for reasons of administrative convenience or for many other reasons, from the only possible real principle of the administration of public moneys on a non-contractual basis, that is, the individual case.
I beg of the Minister not to change his mind. This does not require an Amendment, but I confess that I have been anxious every time he has risen to his feet, from his Second Reading speech until now, and I still am anxious until we get safely through Part II, that he will commit himself further than he has done in the text of the Bill as to what these regulations are to contain and as to how far he will limit the powers of the board, and thus to increase the necessary and inevitable dangers of the task to which he has put himself by his general decision upon Part II. I beg of him not, in answer to anyone, to limit the discretion of his board, or to promise or commit himself to putting, in regulations which come before this House, anything more than is in effect the statutory duty which is already embodied in the terms of this Bill, the statutory duty which has been the duty of Poor Law authorities ever since Queen Elizabeth—to relieve need.
Do not let him go further than that. Let him put the best people whom he can find to administer the Act. If they cannot do it properly, no rules or regulations administered by rule of thumb all over the country by clerks at £2 a week will do it for him. That may be the correct way of administering contractual payments settled in a judicial spirit; that is Part I. It is a totally wrong analogy, I submit to the Committee and the Minister, to apply to Part II. He has been compelled, in short, to run the risk of assimilating this Measure to the most dangerous form of Poor Law that you can have—a centralised national Poor Law. He has done so for very good reasons, which he has explained very candidly. Let him at least bear in mind the lessons and experience which are, after all, primarily lessons which have been drilled into the Department which has handed this baby to him, the Ministry of Health. Do not fetter either his or his board's decision one inch further than he can help in answer to any of the appeals or claims, constitutional
or otherwise, of this Committee or this House to lay down cast-iron rules and regulations covering every conceivable detail and then trust to an automatic judicial or semi-judicial administration of them to get him or us out of trouble.

7.14 p.m.

Miss RATHBONE: I am one of those who see both good and bad in Part II of the Bill. I see some good qualities and some serious dangers, and I should like in a few words to summarise what the good and the bad points seem to me to be. On the good side of Part II the first point is that it does away with the entirely indefensible differences of scale all over the country. Nobody can defend the system under which persons who are being relieved out of national funds are dealt with on different scales according to the whim or political colour of local bodies in different parts of the country. Secondly, it does set up for the unemployed or the people who are not in insurance a body which is not as distasteful to their public sentiment as the public assistance authorities. I have not much sympathy with the feeling that it is a degradation to go to the Poor Law. If I were unemployed and if I were a ratepayer, I should feel that it was as dignified to go to a local authority as to any other form of assistance, but it is no use ignoring the fact that large numbers of persons who are not getting ordinary benefit, or are not qualified for it, will not go to the Poor Law because of what is called its stigma. The Bill sets up a body to which they can go without feeling that they are incurring that stigma.
A third good point, to which I attach great importance and about which little has been heard in the Debate, is that we are to have a body set up to deal with persons who have fallen out of insurance, or who are not subject to insurance, about which there is no rule laid down that it cannot grant more than the rates of ordinary benefit. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Greenwood) assumed that the scales laid down under Part II would be lower than the ordinary benefit under Part I. I cannot see any justification for that in the terms of the Bill, or in anything that has been said by the Minister. It seems to me that we cannot tell until we know what the regulations are. Everything
depends on them, but it ought to be possible for a person who is getting benefit under Part I, when he has no other resources, and cannot maintain a decent standard of life under Part I, to be able to go to the Assistance Board and get his ordinary benefit supplemented, and a person who is not on ordinary benefit, if he has no other resources, ought to be able to obtain a scale of assistance from the board that is considerably in excess of the scales of ordinary benefit. Under transitional payments it was laid down that no one should get more than the amount of ordinary benefit. That has been got rid of now. This Clause has, therefore, three great advantages. It creates greater uniformity all over the country; it gets rid of the so-called stigma of the Poor Law; and it makes for greater elasticity which will, if the regulations are good, enable something to be established under Part II which is really like what the Labour party have always asked for, namely, a standard [...]f real maintenance based on the physiological needs of healthy citizens.
The weak point in the Clause seems to be the point made by other speakers, namely, that the measure of Parliamentary control is altogether too vague. The Minister has told us that we shall have several opportunities of exercising some control over the operations of the board. The regulations have to be laid before the House, and we shall be able to raise the question of the regulations on the salaries of the Minister and of the members of the Public Assistance Board. Am I right in assuming that all that we shall be able to do is to accept or reject the regulations in toto? We shall not, I gather, be able to amend them. I suggest to the Minister that he would to a large extent meet the reasonable criticisms that have been made if he would definitely concede the right to this House to amend the regulations.
Again, we are told that regulations are to be made, but the word "regulations" is in itself a vague and question-begging word. What sort of regulations are to be made? Most people have assumed that regulations will lay down certain scales, perhaps not rigid scales, but limits within which the amount of assistance given by the board will fall. We ought to be certain about that, because regulations that are in merely vague terms will not be of
very much use. I would like the Minister to give us an assurance that the regulations will be definite as to scales of assistance, subject to some limits under which the need will be assessed. If he can give us an assurance on this point and concede the right to the House to amend the regulations, he will very much relieve the minds of some of us who are doubtful whether we should welcome or reject this part of the Bill.

The CHAIRMAN: I hardly think that I can allow a question of that sort to be answered on this particular Amendment.

7.23 p.m.

Viscountess ASTOR: It does not look as if we shall get to the Amendment which I have on the Paper. Will the Minister, therefore, assure us that one-quarter of the members of the committees set up by the board will be women? He has made out such a good case for these committees and has said that they will have to know household conditions and local needs that I am certain the Minister means that the board should contain women. There is a prejudice against women in some localities, and I am sure it would be the wish of the House if he will assure us that one-quarter of the committees will be women.

The CHAIRMAN: I do not think that is a question which can be discussed now. It would be a more appropriate subject for the Schedules.

7.24 p.m.

Mr. BUCHANAN: I would not have intervened but for the speech of the hon. Member for Stirling and Falkirk (Mr. J. Reid) and the hon. Member for the English Universities (Miss Rathbone). Both took the view that under this Bill the board would have the power to give increased allowances to the unemployed in addition to that which is allowed under Part I, and that the board were likely to use that power. The real objection to this proposal is that we do not know whether the board will increase or decrease the allowances. One of my basic objections to it is that we have no right to hand over a million human beings to a board with power to reduce the already

low scales. It is true, as the hon. Lady says, that the board can increase them, but they can also decrease them. The House has no right to hand over to four or five men and women, be they as good as good can be, the right of determining the lives of over a million of our fellow citizens. The point is not whether the board can increase or decrease; the power is given to them to fix any scale they like.

Miss RATHBONE: Would not that be met if it is in the power of the House to amend the regulations which establish the scales?

Mr. BUCHANAN: The power may be vested in them to fix the scales; but the point is that the scales are not even fixed under the regulations and they are subject to a great number of other circumstances which will make the regulations almost ineffective unless they are to be debated in the same way as a Bill is. Under transitional payments, which are more or less analogous to the payments under Part II of the Bill, the Minister took the precaution of saying to every Poor Law authority, "You shall not pay more than is allowed under Part I." He does not need to say that to this board because the board will not do it. He does not use the parish councils or the Poor Law authorities; he uses a board which will do what he wants them to do and which will more or less fix the scales according to Part I. Anything that is argued contrary is against the facts of the case. If the Minister wants to sweep away at least half the opposition to this Bill let him fix higher scales for Part II now. It is because there is no intention of paying higher scales that no scale is laid down in the Bill. This small body will fit into the work as the Minister wants them to fit in and as the design of the Bill shows that they are to be fitted in, and because it will lower the standard of scales I think the Clause ought to be rejected.

Question put, "That those words be there inserted."

The Committee divided: Ayes, 69; Noes, 324.

Division No. 109.]
AYES.
[7.29 p.m.


Adams, D. M. (Poplar, South)
Bevan, Aneurin (Ebbw Vale)
Cove, William G.


Aske, Sir Robert William
Brown, C. W. E. (Notts., Mansfield)
Cripps, Sir Stafford


Attlee, Clement Richard
Buchanan, George
Curry, A. C.


Banfield, John William
Cocks, Frederick Seymour
Dagger, George


Davies, David L. (Pontypridd)
Janner, Barnett
Parkinson, John Allen


Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)
Jenkins, Sir William
Pickering, Ernest H.


Dobble, William
Jones, J. J. (West Ham, Silvertown)
Price, Gabriel


Edwards, Charles
Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)
Rathbone, Eleanor


Evans, David Owen (Cardigan)
Kirkwood, David
Rea, Walter Russell


Evans, Capt. Ernest (Welsh Univ.)
Lawson, John James
Roberts, Aled (Wrexham)


Foot, Dingle (Dundee)
Leonard, William
Salter, Dr. Alfred


Foot, Isaac (Cornwall, Bodmin)
Logan, David Gilbert
Samuel, Rt. Hon. Sir H. (Darwen)


George, Megan A. Lloyd (Anglesea)
Lunn, William
Sinclair, Maj. Rt. Hn. Sir A. (C'thness)


Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton)
Macdonald, Gordon (Ince)
Smith, Tom (Normanton)


Greenwood, Rt. Hon. Arthur
McEntee, Valentine L.
Thorne, William James


Grenfell, David Rees (Glamorgan)
Maclay, Hon. Joseph Paton
Tinker, John Joseph


Griffith, F. Kingsley (Middlesbro', W.)
Maclean, Neil (Glasgow, Govan)
White, Henry Graham


Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)
Mainwaring, William Henry
Williams, Dr. John H. (Llanelly)


Grundy, Thomas W.
Mallalieu, Edward Lancelot
Wilmot, John


Hall, George H. (Merthyr Tydvil)
Mander, Geoffrey le M.
Wood, Sir Murdoch Mckenzie (Banff)


Hamilton, Sir R. W. (Orkney & Zetl'nd)
Maxton, James.
Young, Ernest J. (Middlesbrough, E.)


Harris, Sir Percy
Milner, Major James



Hicks, Ernest George
Owen, Major Goronwy
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Holdsworth, Herbert
Paling, Wilfred
Mr. John and Mr. Groves.



NOES.


Adams, Samuel Vyvyan T. (Leeds, W.)
Croom-Johnson, R. P.
Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry


Agnew, Lieut.-Com. P. G.
Cross, R. H.
Harbord, Arthur


Allen, Lt.-Col. J. Sandeman (B'k'nh'd)
Crossley, A. C.
Hartington, Marquess of


Allen, William (Stoke-on-Trent)
Cruddas, Lieut-Colonel Bernard
Hartland, George A.


Anstruther-Gray, W. J.
Culverwell, Cyril Tom
Harvey, George (Lambeth, Kenn'gt'n)


Astor, Maj. Hn. John J. (Kent, Dover)
Davies, Edward C. (Montgomery)
Harvey, Major S. E. (Devon, Totnes)


Astor, Viscountess (Plymouth, Sutton)
Davies, Maj. Geo. F. (Somerset, Yeovil)
Haslam, Henry (Horncastle)


Bailey, Eric Alfred George
Davison, Sir William Henry
Haslam, Sir John (Bolton)


Baillie, Sir Adrian W. M.
Despencer-Robertson, Major J. A. F.
Headlam, Lieut.-Col. Cuthbert M.


Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley
Dickle, John P.
Hellgers, Captain F. F. A.


Balfour, George (Hampstead)
Dixey, Arthur C. N.
Hepworth, Joseph


Balfour, Capt. Harold (I. of Thanet)
Doran, Edward
Hoare, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir S. J. G.


Barclay-Harvey, C. M.
Dower, Captain A. V. G.
Hope, Capt. Hon. A. O. J. (Aston)


Barrie, Sir Charles Coupar
Drewe, Cedric
Hope, Sydney (Chester, Stalybridge)


Beauchamp, Sir Brograve Campbell
Dugdale, Captain Thomas Lionel
Hornby, Frank


Beaumont, Hn. R. E. B. (Portsm'th, C.)
Duggan, Hubert John
Horobin, Ian M.


Belt, Sir Alfred L.
Duncan, James A. L. (Kensington, N.)
Horsbrugh, Florence


Betterton, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry B.
Dunglass, Lord
Howitt, Dr. Alfred B.


Blindell, James
Eales, John Frederick
Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.)


Borodale, Viscount.
Eastwood, John Francis
Hudson, Robert Spear (Southport)


Boulton, W. W.
Edmondson, Major A. J.
Hunter, Dr. Joseph (Dumfries)


Bowater, Col. Sir T. Vansittart
Ellis, Sir R. Geoffrey
Inskip, Rt. Hon. Sir Thomas W. H.


Bower, Lieut.-Com. Robert Tatton
Elliston, Captain George Sampson
Iveagh, Countess of


Bowyer, Capt. Sir George E. W.
Elmley, Viscount
James, Wing-Com. A. W. H.


Bracken, Brendan
Emrys-Evans, P. V.
Jesson, Major Thomas E.


Braithwaite, J. G. (Hillsborough)
Entwistle, Cyril Fullard
Joel, Dudley J. Barnato


Brass, Captain Sir William
Erskine, Lord (Weston-super-Mare)
Johnston, J. W. (Clackmannan)


Broadbent, Colonel John
Erskine-Bolst, Capt. C. C. (Blackpool)
Jones, Sir G. W. H. (Stoke New'gton)


Brocklebank, C. E. R.
Everard, W. Lindsay
Jones, Lewis (Swansea, West)


Brown, Col. D. C. (N'th'l'd., Hexham)
Fermoy, Lord
Ker, J. Campbell


Brown, Ernest (Leith)
Fielden, Edward Brocklehurst
Kerr, Hamilton W.


Buchan-Hepburn, P. G. T.
Fleming, Edward Lascelles
Knight, Holford


Bullock, Captain Malcolm
Ford, Sir Patrick J.
Knox, Sir Alfred


Burnett, John George
Fraser, Captain Ian
Lamb, Sir Joseph Quinton


Butler, Richard Austen
Fremantle, Sir Francis
Lambert, Rt. Hon. George


Cadogan, Hon. Edward
Fuller, Captain A. G.
Latham, Sir Herbert Paul


Campbell, Sir Edward Taswell (Brmly)
Ganzonl, Sir John
Law, Sir Alfred


Campbell-Johnston, Malcolm
Gault, Lieut.-Col. A. Hamilton
Law, Richard K. (Hull, S. W.)


Caporn, Arthur Cecil
Gillett, Sir George Masterman
Leech, Dr. J. W.


Carver, Major William H.
Gilmour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir John
Lees-Jones, John


Cassels, James Dale
Gledhill, Gilbert
Levy, Thomas


Castlereagh, Viscount
Glossop, C. W. H.
Lewis, Oswald


Cautley, Sir Henry S.
Gluckstein, Louis Halle
Liddall, Walter S.


Cayzer, Sir Charles (Chester, City)
Glyn, Major Sir Ralph G. C.
Lindsay, Noel Ker


Cayzer, Maj. Sir H. R. (Prtsmth., S.)
Goff, Sir Park
Little, Graham-, Sir Ernest


Cazalet, Thelma (Islington, E.)
Goldie, Noel B.
Llewellin, Major John J.


Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. N. (Edgbaston)
Goodman, Colonel Albert W.
Lloyd, Geoffrey


Chapman, Sir Samuel (Edinburgh, S.)
Gower, Sir Robert
Locker-Lampson, Rt. Hn. G. (Wd, Gr'n)


Chorlton, Alan Ernest Leofric
Graham, Sir F. Fergus (C'mb'rl'd, N.)
Lockwood, John C. (Hackney, C.)


Clarke, Frank
Grattan-Doyle, Sir Nicholas
Loder, Captain J. de Vere


Clarry, Reginald George
Graves, Marjorie
Lumley, Captain Lawrence R.


Cobb, Sir Cyril
Greaves-Lord, Sir Walter
Lyons, Abraham Montagu


Cochrane, Commander Hon. A. D.
Gretton, Colonel Rt. Hon. John
Mabane, William


Colfox, Major William Philip
Grimston, R. V.
MacAndrew, Lieut.-Col. C. G. (Partick)


Conant, R. J. E.
Gritten, W. G. Howard
MacAndrew, Capt. J. O. (Ayr)


Cook, Thomas A.
Guest, Capt. Rt. Hon. F. E.
McCorquodale, M. S.


Cooke, Douglas
Guinness, Thomas L. E. B.
MacDonald, Rt. Hon. J. R. (Seaham)


Cooper, A. Duff
Gunston, Captain D. W.
MacDonald, Malcolm (Bassetlaw)


Copeland, Ida
Guy, J. C. Morrison
McKie, John Hamilton


Craddock, Sir Reginald Henry
Hacking, Rt. Hon. Douglas H.
McLean, Major Sir Alan


Craven-Ellis, William
Hall, Capt. W. D'Arcy (Brecon)
McLean, Dr. W. H. (Tradeston)


Crookshank, Capt. H. C. (Gainsb'ro)
Hamilton, Sir George (Ilford)
Macmillan, Maurice Harold



Macpherson, Rt. Hon. Sir Ian
Renwick, Major Gustav A.
Strickland, Captain W. F.


Magnay, Thomas
Rickards, George William
Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)


Maitland, Adam
Robinson, John Roland
Stuart, Lord C. Crichton-


Makins, Brigadier-General Ernest
Ropner, Colonel L.
Sueter, Rear-Admiral Sir Murray F.


Manningham-Buller, Lt.-Col. Sir M.
Rosbotham, Sir Thomas
Sugden, Sir Wilfrid Hart


Margesson, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. D. R.
Ross, Ronald D.
Summersby, Charles H.


Marsden, Commander Arthur
Ross Taylor, Walter (Woodbridge)
Sutcliffe, Harold


Martin, Thomas B.
Runge, Norah Cecil
Tate, Mavis Constance


Mason, Col. Glyn K. (Croydon, N.)
Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth)
Taylor, Vice-Admiral E. A. (P'dd'gt'n, S.)


Mayhew, Lieut.-Colonel John
Russell, Hamer Field (Sheffield, B'tside)
Templeton, William P.


Meller, Sir Richard James
Rutherford John (Edmonton)
Thomas, James P. L. (Hereford)


Mills, Sir Frederick (Leyton, E.)
Rutherford, Sir John Hugo (Liverp'l)
Thompson, Sir Luke


Mills, Major J. D. (New Forest)
Salmon, Sir Isidore
Thomson, Sir Frederick Charles


Mitchell, Sir W. Lane (Streatham)
Salt, Edward W.
Thorp, Linton Theodore


Mitcheson, G. G.
Samuel, Sir Arthur Michael (F'nham)
Titchfield, Major the Marquess of


Molson, A. Hugh Elsdale
Sandeman, Sir A. N. Stewart
Tree, Ronald


Monsell, Rt. Hon. Sir B. Eyres
Sassoon, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip A. G. D.
Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement


Moreing, Adrian C.
Savery, Samuel Servington
Tufnell, Lieut.-Commander R. L.


Morgan, Robert H.
Scone, Lord
Turton, Robert Hugh


Morris-Jones, Dr. J. H. (Denbigh)
Selley, Harry R.
Wallace, Captain D. E. (Hornsey)


Moss, Captain H. J.
Shakespeare, Geoffrey H.
Wallace, John (Dunfermilne)


Munro, Patrick
Shaw, Helen B. (Lanark, Bothwell)
Ward, Lt.-Col. Sir A. L. (Hull)


Nal, Sir Joseph
Shaw, Captain William T. (Forfar)
Ward, Irene Mary Bewick (Wallsend)


Nall-Cain, Hon. Ronald
Shepperson, Sir Ernest W.
Ward, Sarah Adelaide (Cannock)


Nation, Brigadier-General J. J. H.
Simmonds, Oliver Edwin
Wardlaw-Milne, Sir John S.


Nicholson, Rt. Hn. W. G. (Petersf'ld)
Sinclair, Col. T. (Queen's Unv., Belfast)
Warrender, Sir Victor A. G.


Normand, Rt. Hon. Wilfrid
Skelton, Archibald Noel
Waterhouse, Captain Charles


O'Connor, Terence James
Smiles, Lieut.-Col. Sir Walter D.
Watt, Captain George Steven H.


O'Donovan, Dr. William James
Smith, Bracewell (Dulwich)
Wedderburn, Henry James Scrymgeour-


Ormsby-Gore, Rt. Hon. William G. A.
Smith, Sir J. Walker (Barrow-in-F.)
Wells, Sydney Richard


Pearson, William G.
Smith, R. W. (Aberd'n & Kinc'dine, C.)
Weymouth, Viscount


Peat, Charles U.
Smithers, Waldron
Whiteside, Borras Noel H.


Percy, Lord Eustace
Somervell, Sir Donald
Williams, Herbert G. (Croydon, S.)


Perkins, Walter R. D.
Somerville, Annesley A. (Windsor)
Willoughby de Eresby, Lord


Petherick, M.
Somerville, D. G. (Willesden, East)
Wilson, Lt.-Col. Sir Arnold (Hertf'd)


Peto, Geoffrey K. (W'verh'pt'n, Bilst'n)
Soper, Richard
Wilson, Clyde T. (West Toxteth)


Pickford, Hon. Mary Ada
Sotheron-Estcourt, Captain T. E.
Wilson, G. H. A. (Cambridge U.)


Powell, Lieut.-Col. Evelyn G. H.
Southby, Commander Archibald R. J.
Windsor-Clive, Lieut-Colonel George


Procter, Major Henry Adam
Spens, William Patrick
Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl


Pybus, Sir Percy John
Stanley, Rt. Hon. Lord (Fylde)
Wise, Alfred R.


Ramsay, T. B. W. (Western Isles)
Stanley, Hon. O. F. G. (Westmorland)
Withers, Sir John James


Ramsbotham, Herwald
Steel-Maitland, Rt. Hon. Sir Arthur
Wolmer, Rt. Hon. Viscount


Reed, Arthur C. (Exeter)
Stewart, J. H. (Fife, E.)
Worthington, Dr. John V.


Reid, Capt. A. Cunningham-
Stones, James
Young, Rt. Hon. Sir Hilton (S'v'noaks)


Reid, James S. C. (Stirling)
Storey, Samuel



Reid, William Allan (Derby)
Stourton, Hon. John J.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Remer, John R.
Strauss, Edward A.
Sir George Penny and Mr. Womersley.

It being after Half-past Seven of the Clock, The CHAIRMAN proceeded, pursuant to the Order of the House of 19th December, successively to put forthwith the Question on the Amendment moved by the Government of which notice had been given, and the Question necessary to dispose of the business to be concluded at Half-past Seven of the Clock at this day's sitting.

Amendment made: In page 29, line 25, after "committees," insert "throughout Great Britain to act."—[Sir H. Betterton.]

Question put, "That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."

The Committee divided: Ayes, 324; Noes, 68.

Cooper, A. Duff
Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.)
Rathbone, Eleanor


Copeland, Ida
Hudson, Robert Spear (Southport)
Reed, Arthur C. (Exeter)


Craddock, Sir Reginald Henry
Hunter, Dr. Joseph (Dumfries)
Reid, Capt. A. Cunningham-


Craven-Ellis, William
Inskip, Rt. Hon. Sir Thomas W. H.
Reid, James S. C. (Stirling)


Crookshank, Capt. H. C. (Gainsb'ro)
Iveagh, Countess of
Reid, William Allan (Derby)


Croom-Johnson, R. P.
James, Wing.-Com. A. W. H.
Remer, John R.


Cross, R. H.
Jesson, Major Thomas E.
Renwick, Major Gustav A.


Crossley, A. C.
Joel, Dudley J. Barnato
Rickards, George William


Cruddas, Lieut.-Colonel Bernard
Johnston, J. W. (Clackmannan)
Robinson, John Roland


Culverwell, Cyril Tom
Jones, Sir G. W. H. (Stoke New'gton)
Ropner, Colonel L.


Davies, Edward C. (Montgomery)
Jones, Lewis (Swansea, West)
Rosbotham, Sir Thomas


Davies, Maj. Geo. F. (Somerset, Yeovil)
Ker, J. Campbell
Ross, Ronald D.


Davison, Sir William Henry
Kerr, Hamilton W.
Ross Taylor, Walter (Woodbridge)


Despencer-Robertson, Major J. A. F.
Knox, Sir Alfred
Runge, Norah Cecil


Dickle, John P.
Lamb, Sir Joseph Quinton
Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth)


Dixey, Arthur C. N.
Lambert, Rt. Hon. George
Russell, Hamer Field (Sheffield, B'tside)


Dixon, Rt. Hon. Herbert
Latham, Sir Herbert Paul
Rutherford, John (Edmonton)


Doran, Edward
Law, Sir Alfred
Rutherford, Sir John Hugo (Liverp'l)


Dower, Captain A. V. G.
Law, Richard K. (Hull, S. W.)
Salmon, Sir Isidore


Drewe, Cedric
Leech, Dr. J. W.
Salt, Edward W.


Dugdale, Captain Thomas Lionel
Lees-Jones, John
Samuel, Sir Arthur Michael (F'nham)


Duggan, Hubert John
Levy, Thomas
Sandeman, Sir A. N. Stewart


Duncan, James A. L. (Kensington, N.)
Lewis, Oswald
Sassoon, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip A. G. D.


Dunglass, Lord
Liddall, Walter S.
Savery, Samuel Servington


Eales, John Frederick
Lindsay, Noel Ker
Scone, Lord


Eastwood, John Francis
Little, Graham-, Sir Ernest
Selley, Harry R.


Edmondson, Major A. J.
Llewellin, Major John J.
Shakespeare, Geoffrey H.


Ellis, Sir R. Geoffrey
Lloyd, Geoffrey
Shaw, Helen B. (Lanark, Bothwell)


Elliston, Captain George Sampson
Locker-Lampson, Rt. Hn. G. (Wd, Gr'n)
Shaw, Captain William T. (Forfar)


Elmley, Viscount
Lockwood, John C. (Hackney, C.)
Shepperson, Sir Ernest W.


Emrys-Evans, P. V.
Loder, Captain J. de Vere
Simmonds, Oliver Edwin


Entwistle, Cyril Fullard
Lumley, Captain Lawrence R.
Sinclair, Col. T. (Queen's Unv., Belfast)


Erskine-Bolst, Capt. C. C. (Blackpool)
Lyons, Abraham Montagu
Skelton, Archibald Noel


Everard, W. Lindsay
Mabane, William
Smiles, Lieut.-Col. Sir Walter D.


Fermoy, Lord
MacAndrew, Lt. Col C. G. (Partick)
Smith, Bracewell (Dulwich)


Fielden, Edward Brocklehurst
MacAndrew, Capt. J. O. (Ayr)
Smith, Sir J. Walker- (Barrow-in-F.)


Fleming, Edward Lascelles
McCorquodale, M. S.
Smith, R. W. (Aberd'n & Kinc'dine, C.)


Ford, Sir Patrick J.
MacDonald, Rt. Hon. J. R. (Seaham)
Smithers, Waldron


Fraser, Captain Ian
MacDonald, Malcolm (Bassetlaw)
Somervell, Sir Donald


Fremantle, Sir Francis
McKie, John Hamilton
Somerville, Annesley A (Windsor)


Fuller, Captain A. G.
Maclay, Hon. Joseph Paton
Somerville, D. G. (Willesden, East)


Ganzoni, Sir John
McLean, Major Sir Alan
Soper, Richard


Gault, Lieut.-Col. A. Hamilton
McLean, Dr. W. H. (Tradeston)
Sotheron-Estcourt, Captain T. E.


Gillett, Sir George Masterman
Macmillan, Maurice Harold
Southby, Commander Archibald R. J.


Gilmour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir John
Magnay, Thomas
Spens, William Patrick


Gledhill, Gilbert
Maitland, Adam
Stanley, Rt. Hon. Lord (Fylde)


Glossop, C. W. H.
Makins, Brigadier-General Ernest
Stanley, Hon. O. F. G. (Westmorland)


Gluckstein, Louis Halle
Manningham-Buller, Lt.-Col. Sir M.
Steel-Maitland, Rt. Hon. Sir Arthur


Glyn, Major Sir Ralph G. C.
Margesson, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. D. R.
Stewart, J. H. (Fife, E.)


Goff, Sir Park
Marsden, Commander Arthur
Stones, James


Goldie, Noel B.
Martin, Thomas B.
Storey, Samuel


Goodman, Colonel Albert W.
Mason, Col. Glyn K. (Croydon, N.)
Stourton, Hon. John J.


Gower, Sir Robert
Mayhew, Lieut.-Colonel John
Strauss, Edward A.


Graham, Sir F. Fergus (C'mb'rl'd, N.)
Meller, Sir Richard James
Strickland, Captain W. F.


Grattan-Doyle, Sir Nicholas
Mills, Major J. D. (New Forest)
Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)


Graves, Marjorie
Mitchell, Sir W. Lane (Streatham)
Stuart, Lord C. Crichton-


Greaves-Lord, Sir Walter
Mitcheson, G. G.
Sueter, Rear-Admiral Sir Murray F.


Gretton, Colonel Rt. Hon. John
Molson, A. Hugh Elsdale
Sugden, Sir Wilfrid Hart


Grimston, R. V.
Monsell, Rt. Hon. Sir B. Eyres
Summersby, Charles H.


Gritten, W. G. Howard
Moreing, Adrian C.
Sutcliffe, Harold


Guest, Capt. Rt. Hon. F. E.
Morgan, Robert H.
Tate, Mavis Constance


Guinness, Thomas L. E. B.
Morris-Jones, Dr. J. H. (Denbigh)
Taylor, Vice-Admiral E. A. (P'dd'gt'n, S.)


Gunston, Captain D. W.
Moss, Captain H. J.
Templeton, William P.


Guy, J. C. Morrison
Munro, Patrick
Thomas, James P. L. (Hereford)


Hacking, Rt. Hon. Douglas H.
Nall, Sir Joseph
Thompson, Sir Luke


Hall, Capt. W. D'Arcy (Brecon)
Nall-Cain, Hon. Ronald
Thomson, Sir Frederick Charles


Hamilton, Sir George (Ilford)
Nation, Brigadier-General J. J. H.
Thorp, Linton Theodore


Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry
Nicholson, Rt. Hn. W. G. (Petersf'ld)
Titchfield, Major the Marquess of


Harbord, Arthur
Normand, Rt. Hon. Wilfrid
Tree, Ronald


Hartington, Marquess of
O'Connor, Terence James
Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement


Hartland, George A.
O'Donovan, Dr. William James
Tufnell, Lieut.-Commander R. L.


Harvey, George (Lambeth, Kenningt'n)
Ormsby-Gore, Rt. Hon. William G. A.
Turton, Robert Hugh


Harvey, Major S. E. (Devon, Totnes)
Pearson, William G.
Wallace, Captain D. E. (Hornsey)


Haslam, Henry (Horncastle)
Peat, Charles U.
Wallace, John (Dunfermilne)


Haslam, Sir John (Bolton)
Penny, Sir George
Ward, Lt.-Col. Sir A. L. (Hull)


Headlam, Lieut.-Col. Cuthbert M.
Percy, Lord Eustace
Ward, Irene Mary Bewick (Wallsend)


Heilgers, Captain F. F. A.
Perkins, Walter R. D.
Ward, Sarah Adelaide (Cannock)


Hepworth, Joseph
Petherick, M.
Wardlaw-Milne, Sir John S.


Hoare, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir S. J. G.
Peto, Geoffrey K. (W'verh'pt'n, Bilston)
Warrender, Sir Victor A. G.


Hope, Capt. Hon. A. O. J. (Aston)
Pickford, Hon. Mary Ada
Waterhouse, Captain Charles


Hope, Sydney (Chester, Stalybridge)
Powell, Lieut.-Col. Evelyn G. H.
Watt, Captain George Steven H.


Hornby, Frank
Procter, Major Henry Adam
Wedderburn, Henry James Scrymgeour-


Horobin, Ian M.
Pybus, Sir Percy John
Wells, Sydney Richard


Horsbrugh, Florence
Ramsay, T. B. W. (Western Isles)
Weymouth, Viscount


Howitt, Dr. Alfred B.
Ramsbotham, Herwale
Whiteside, Borras Noel H.

Williams, Herbert G. (Croydon, S.)
Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George
Worthington, Dr. John V.


Willoughby de Eresby, Lord
Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl
Young, Rt. Hon. Sir Hilton (S'v'noaks)


Wilson, Lt.-Col. Sir Arnold (Hertf'd)
Wise, Alfred R.



Wilson, Clyde T. (West Toxteth)
Withers, Sir John James
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Wilson, G. H. A. (Cambridge U.)
Wolmer, Rt. Hon. Viscount
Mr. Womersley and Lord Erskine.

Division No. 110.]
AYES.
[7.41 p.m.


Adams, Samuel Vyvyan T. (Leeds, W.)
Blindell, James
Caporn, Arthur Cecil


Agnew, Lieut. Com. P. G.
Borodale, Viscount
Carver, Major William H.


Albery, Irving James
Boulton, W. W.
Cassels, James Dale


Allen, Lt. Col. J. Sandeman (B'k'nh'd)
Bowater, Col. Sir T. Vansittart
Castlereagh, Viscount


Allen, William (Stoke-on-Trent)
Bower, Lieut.-Com. Robert Tatton
Cautley, Sir Henry S.


Anstruther-Gray, W. J.
Bowyer, Capt. Sir George E. W.
Cayzer, Sir Charles (Chester, City)


Astor, Maj. Hn. John J. (Kent, Dover)
Bracken, Brendan
Cayzer, Maj. Sir H. R. (Prtsmth., S.)


Astor, Viscountess (Plymouth, Sutton)
Braithwaite, J. G. (Hillsborough)
Cazalet, Thelma (Islington, E.)


Balley, Eric Alfred George
Brass, Captain Sir William
Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. N. (Edgbaston)


Baillie, Sir Adrian W. M.
Broadbent, Colonel John
Chapman, Sir Samuel (Edinburgh, S.)


Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley
Brocklebank, C. E. R.
Chorlton, Alan Ernest Leofric


Balfour, George (Hampstead)
Brown, Col. D. C. (N'th'l'd., Hexham)
Clarke, Frank


Balfour, Capt. Harold (I. of Thanet)
Brown, Ernest (Leith)
Clarry, Reginald George


Barclay-Harvey, C. M.
Buchan-Hepburn, P. G. T.
Cobb, Sir Cyril


Barrie, Sir Charles Coupar
Bullock, Captain Malcolm
Cochrane, Commander Hon. A. D.


Beauchamp, Sir Brograve Campbell
Burnett, John George
Colfox, Major William Philip


Beaumont, Hon. R. E. B. (Portsm'th, C.)
Butler, Richard Austen
Conant, R. J. E.


Beit, Sir Alfred L.
Campbell, Sir Edward Taswell (Brmly)
Cook, Thomas A.


Betterton, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry B.
Campbell-Johnston, Malcolm
Cooke, Douglas


NOES.


Adams, D. M. (Poplar, South)
Grenfell, David Rees (Glamorgan)
Maxton, James


Asks, Sir Robert William
Griffith, F. Kingsley (Middlesbro', W.)
Milner, Major James


Attlee, Clement Richard
Giffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)
Owen, Major Goronwy


Banfield, John William
Grundy, Thomas W.
Paling, Wilfred


Batey, Joseph
Hall, George H. (Merthyr Tydvil)
Parkinson, John Allen


Bevan, Aneurin (Ebbw Vale)
Hamilton, Sir R. W. (Orkney & Zetl'nd)
Pickering, Ernest H.


Brown, C. W. E. (Notts., Mansfield)
Harris, Sir Percy
Price, Gabriel


Buchanan, George
Hicks, Ernest George
Rea, Walter Russell


Cocks, Frederick Seymour
Holdsworth, Herbert
Roberts, Aled (Wrexham)


Cove, William G.
Janner, Barnett
Salter, Dr. Alfred


Cripps, Sir Stafford
Jenkins, Sir William
Samuel, Rt. Hon. Sir H. (Darwen)


Curry, A. C.
Jones, J. J. (West Ham, Silvertown)
Sinclair, Maj. Rt. Hn. Sir A. (C'thness)


Dagger, George
Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)
Smith, Tom (Normanton)


Davies, David L. (Pontypridd)
Kirkwood, David
Thorne, William James


Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)
Lawson, John James
Tinker, John Joseph


Dobbie, William
Leonard, William
White, Henry Graham


Edwards, Charles
Logan, David Gilbert
Williams Dr. John H. (Llanelly)


Evans, David Owen (Cardigan)
Lunn, William
Wilmot, John


Evans, Capt. Ernest (Welsh Univ.)
Macdonald, Gordon (Ince)
Wood, Sir Murdoch McKenzie (Banff)


Foot, Dingle (Dundee)
McEntee, Valentine L.
Young, Ernest J. (Middlesbrough, E.)


Foot, Isaac (Cornwall, Bodmin)
Maclean, Neil (Glasgow, Govan)



George, Megan A. Lloyd (Anglesea)
Mainwaring, William Henry
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton)
Mallalieu, Edward Lancelot
Mr. John and Mr. Groves.


Greenwood, Rt. Hon. Arthur
Mander, Geoffrey le M.

CLAUSE 35.—(Application of Part II of Act.)

7.51 p.m.

The CHAIRMAN: It may be for the convenience of the Committee just to indicate what Amendments I propose to select. The Amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Dumbarton Burghs (Mr. Kirkwood) I am inclined to think was unnecessary, but I understand that it will not take very long and that the object of it is only to get a statement from the Parliamentary Secretary of the Ministry of Labour. Therefore, that will be the first Amendment I propose to select. The next five, down to and including that in the name of the hon. Member for North East Ham (Lieut.-Colonel Mayhew), are out of order, because they are outside the scope of the Financial Resolution. As to the next three, standing in the names of hon. Members of the Opposition:

(1) In page 30, line 11, at end, to insert "of any nature."—[Mr. T. Smith.]
(2) Leave out lines 12 to 21.—[Mr. Batey.]
(3) In line 16, leave out from "dispute," to "he," in line 18.—[Mr. T. Williams.]

I understand that they attach more importance to the third than to the second. Therefore, I propose to select that which is in the name of the hon. Member for Normanton (Mr. T. Smith) and next that in the name of the hon. Member for Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams). Then follows the Amendment in the name of the hon.
Member for Stirling and Falkirk (Mr. J. Reid):
In page 30, line 21, at the end, insert:

(2) A person whose normal occupation has been employment in respect of which contributions are payable under the Widows', Orphans', and Old Age Contributory Pensions Act, 1925 to 1932, shall not be held to be disqualified under the immediately preceding sub-section by reason only of the length of time which has elapsed since he was last employed in such occupation, or of his having undertaken other work at a time when he was unable to obtain employment in his normal occupation.

7.52 p.m.

Mr. KIRKWOOD: I beg to move, in page 29, line 37, after "person," to insert:
whether or not he is in receipt of benefit under the Unemployment Insurance Acts.
It is understood that the Unemployment Assistance Board may grant an allowance to a man who is in receipt of unemployment benefit, but it is not known whether they will. This Amendment is moved in order to have that point made clear. There are two points which I wish to raise with the Minister. When the present Minister was Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour, under the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Tamworth (Sir A. Steel-Maitland) I got a concession. The moulders in Kirkintilloch were on strike, but the labourers to those moulders were not allowed to
sign at the Employment Exchanges. The Minister gave those moulders' labourers the concession that they were allowed to draw benefit at the Employment Exchanges, although the work on which they had been engaged was involved in a strike. I want to know if that concession is to hold good under this Clause. The next point is that an unemployed man may be practically naked because his clothing may be worn out and his boots worn away. His case may not be simply one of malnutrition as a result of under-feeding, but the board may be faced with an individual who comes along when his boots are worn out and he is ragged and in a dreadful state. Does this Clause admit of the board giving an extra grant on occasions such as those? If I can get an answer to those two points from the Minister, that will satisfy me.

7.55 p.m.

Mr. TINKER: We have been trying to find out the position of a man who may be in receipt of unemployment benefit. We understand that the board which is to be set up will have the power to give greater allowances than the man will get by his statutory benefit, if he is in need. Would it be possible, if the man is in need, seeing that under Part II of the Bill all able-bodied people are taken over, for the board to give such a man extra allowances under Part II, although he is already in receipt of statutory benefit? On this side of the House we have the idea that it is the case, but we want the point made clear and definite by the Minister who is in charge of the Bill.

7.56 p.m.

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of LABOUR (Mr. R. S. Hudson): I am not sure if I understood the first point of the hon. Member for Dumbarton Burghs (Mr. Kirkwood), but I think he asked me a question as to what would be the position of men unemployed as a result of a trade dispute. Their position will be no different in future from what it has been in the past, land any concession which he got from my right hon. Friend in the past will remain valid in the future.

Mr. KIRKWOOD: I thank the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. HUDSON: As regards the point made both by the hon. Member for
Leigh (Mr. Tinker) and the hon. Member for Dumbarton Burghs, I can give them the categorical assurance that it will be open to the board under Part II to supplement benefit received under Part I, where a man can establish his need. It will be a matter for the board to lay down the exact regulations. The board, in a case where a man's need is obviously in excess of the statutory benefit, can, under this part of the Bill, give supplemental assistance. I think, beyond any shadow of doubt, that I can personally reassure the Committee on this point.

7.58 p.m.

Mr. BUCHANAN: Have not the board also the power to reduce the amount of benefit? Have they power not only to increase, but to make the payment less than under Part I?

Mr. HUDSON: They have no power whatever to reduce a man's benefit, which is his statutory right. The Amendment deals with the case of a man who is drawing benefit under Part I but who also comes under Part II and gets supplementary benefit. That is the point raised by the Amendment, and the only point, and my answer to it is that he certainly can get supplementary benefit.

Mr. BUCHANAN: I know that point, but it is as well that the other point should be stated again, because when people come under Part II there are other disabilities. I want to raise the point in regard to strikes because it has never been answered.

The CHAIRMAN: Like the Parliamentary Secretary I did not follow the first part of the speech of the hon. Member for Dumbarton Burghs (Mr. Kirkwood). I must point out that the question of industrial disputes is the subject of a definite Amendment to a later Clause.

Mr. BUCHANAN: I know, but if it is in order, I want to put a point. Rights under the Trade Disputes Act are governed by the same conditions as under Part I of this Bill, in respect of transitional payments. That is not the case under this Bill. Those who come under Part II are not governed in the same way as those on transitional payment. A man may be safeguarded under
Part I but those who come under Part II are not safeguarded. The Bill proposes that there shall be the standard payment and the assistance given by the board. At the present time those on transitional payment who are engaged in a trade dispute have the right by virtue of the present law, and are governed by the court of referees and the umpire. That will not be the case under Part II of the Bill. That is the difference. An umpire may decide that an unemployed person is entitled to benefit and is not engaged in a trade dispute. That would mean that subject to the mean test he would get transitional payment, but under the Bill the umpire's decision can only govern cases under Part I, not those under Part II, and it may be possible that an umpire may decide that such and such a thing was not a trade dispute, while under Part II the board might decide something different. The question is how men in a trade dispute are affected by Part II of the Bill if the umpire and other authorities are allowed to come to a different decision in regard to those under Part I.

8.3 p.m.

Mr. HUDSON: The hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) for once is labouring under a misapprehension. If he will look at the Clause he will see that any question as to whether a man under Part II is affected by a trade dispute is to be decided in precisely the same way as in the case of anyone under Part I, and not only that, but that it applies whether a man is an insured person or not. The words are:
or would have been so disqualified as aforesaid if he had been an insured contributor under those Acts.
In other words, the provisions of the present law apply not merely to cases under Part I but to cases under Part II; and in Part II not merely to an insured person but to an uninsured person. I am sure that the hon. Member will be glad to have this assurance and will realise that it will be the Umpire in all cases, not the individual officers of the board, who will have the final say in this matter of a trade dispute.

Mr. KIRKWOOD: I thank the Parliamentary Secretary for his clear and definite reply; it clears the air as far as
we are concerned. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

8.5 p.m.

Mr. T. SMITH: I beg to move, in page 30, line 11, at the end, to insert "of any nature."
We are moving this Amendment in order to safeguard the position of a man who may be certified for light work. Thousands of industrial workers meet with accidents in the course of their employment, and later on are certified as being fit for what is called light work, although not fit to follow their ordinary employment. In the mining industry a man at the coal face might meet with an accident which will keep him from work for months, in some cases for years. He has to go through the usual procedure with regard to compensation and later is certified as being fit for some work, which means light work. Very often when we have approached the colliery manager and asked for light work for a man we have been met with the retort that if there was any light job at all the manager had it. We want to assure that these men will be dealt with by the board, if the other qualifications are in their favour. If the words are inserted the Clause will read:
That he is capable of and available for work of any nature.

8.8 p.m.

Mr. PRICE: This is a very important proposal as far as industrial workers are concerned. We want to know the position of a man who is in receipt of compensation. There are thousands of cases throughout the country of men who have received injury and commence to draw full compensation, but as time goes on they are seen by the medical referee, their pension reduced, and their names put down for light work. It is difficult to get light work at a colliery, and usually to our applications we are told that there is only one man who has a light job and that is the manager. We want to know the position of these men. We think that the Amendment will safeguard their interest.

8.9 p.m.

Mr. HUDSON: I can allay the fears of hon. Members opposite by saying at once that Part II of the Bill is designed to have as wide a scope as possible
having regard to industrial conditions generally. Hon. Members will know that the Umpire in the past has interpreted the words:
capable of and available for work.
very widely indeed. He has laid it down that in order to come within the definition of "capable of work" a man does not necessarily have to be capable of performing his usual work; all that he has to do is to be capable of performing in a normal manner some work which he stands some likelihood of getting in his neighbourhood. To show how widely and sympathetically the Umpire has interpreted these words the Committee will be aware that many men who have been granted 100 per cent. workmen's compensation and very large numbers of men who are in receipt of 100 per cent. disability pensions have been certified by the umpire as being capable of work. With that assurance I hope the hon. Member will withdraw the Amendment. There must be a limit somewhere. If you put these words in the Bill, to take an extreme case, you may have an old lady, bed-ridden, but, nevertheless, able to knit, being described as capable of work. Undoubtedly, it would be work of some nature. When the hon. Member realises the possible implications of the words and has my assurance that our intention is to make the scope as wide as possible, I hope that he will not persist in his Amendment.

8.12 p.m.

Mr. LAWSON: I do not think the Parliamentary Secretary appreciates the gravity of the Amendment. It is true that the Umpire has given a wide interpretation to the words:
capable of and available for work.
but it is also true that in great industrial areas many men who have been injured and unemployed, sometimes for years, who have been placed on light work, have not been able to get that light work in the factory, mine, or mill. Many men who have been off work for years have been adjudged almost outside the field of industry and because of that it may be possible that these men have been treated as not normally insurable persons. In that case they will have gone to the public assistance committee, and, therefore, the question is how they will be treated when they come under the jurisdiction of the board. They may
be left under the jurisdiction of the public assistance committee because they are not normally insurable, they are not counted as unemployed, and, therefore, it seems to me that the Government might consider including these words in order to make sure that these people will get full and adequate consideration by the board. I do not think it is sufficient to say that the Umpire's decision is practically the deciding factor. It seems to me that these words, if included in the Clause, would be practically an instruction to the Unemployment Assistance Board that these people are to receive proper and full compensation, and I would ask the hon. Gentleman to consider their inclusion, because otherwise there seems to me to be a possibility of these men being excluded from consideration altogether.

8.16 p.m.

Mr. HUDSON: As the hon. Member knows, every possible consideration will be given to what he says, but I do not think that either he or his friends quite appreciate the difference that Part II makes. I say that because of his remarks and the analogy that he draws as to a man being regarded as not being normally in an insurable occupation. That a man should be normally employed in insurable employment and likely normally to follow an insurable employment, is one of the conditions for the receipt of transitional payments, but the considerations which are set out at the beginning of this Clause are not conditions on the satisfaction of which a man shall receive allowances; they are the qualification which, if he possesses them, bring him within the scope of the Bill. There is a definite distinction between the two; these are not conditions, but qualifications, which, if he possesses them, bring him automatically within the scope of Part II of the Bill. It is to enable the board to have as wide a scope as possible that we have inserted these provisions.
The actual words of the Amendment, I am afraid, we could not possibly accept, because they go very much further, I think, than even the hon. Member himself would desire; but, if there are any other words that he can suggest between now and Report, I shall be very glad to consider them. I think, however, that, even if finally we cannot accept his proposal, he can rest quite assured that a
man with these qualifications will quite definitely come within the scope of Part II of the Bill, and the mere fact that he has been unemployed for a long time will not by any means necessarily exclude him. It would be out of order to discuss that question at any length, because it arises on a subsequent Amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Stirling and Falkirk (Mr. J. Reid), but I hope I have been able to satisfy the hon. Member that the insertion of these words is not necessary, and that he will be able to see his way to withdraw the Amendment.

Mr. T. SMITH: After the explanation of the Parliamentary Secretary, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

8.20 p.m.

Mr. PARKINSON: I beg to move, in page 30, line 16, to leave out from "dispute" to "he," in line 18.
The words which this Amendment proposes to leave out are:
or during which he would have been so disqualified as aforesaid if he had been an insured contributor under those Acts.
These words convey a very important meaning, and I think the power which is here given to the board is too big a power to be given to any board. There will really be no control over the board, and the words are largely hypothetical. They assume certain cases which may arise, and, if the board or the assistance officer were not sympathetic, it would be easy to place a strained interpretation upon them. It will not be possible for a man in an occupation not covered by unemployment insurance, and out of work owing to a trade dispute, to get allowance under Part II of the Bill, but how can any board decide that a person unemployed would have been employed at a given time? The whole thing is hypothetical. How can it be proved that he would have lost his employment on account of any dispute? A dispute may be taking place, say in the mining industry, and a man may be engaged in the dispute. He may also have two sons, one of them under Part I who has exhausted his benefit, and another who has never been employed but will come under Part II of the Act. If, although the
father is directly engaged in the dispute, neither of his sons has been able at that time to get employment, how is any board or officer to decide that those people would have been employed in that particular industry at that particular time?
This appears to me to be mere word-spinning, because it is impossible for anyone to lose something that he does not possess, and it is an absurd power to be exercised, either by the board or by the assistance officer. An unsympathetic officer, by his interpretation of these words, could cause great hardship to the people in the area, and might even become a positive danger to those who are unemployed, particularly those who might have been employed in an industry where a dispute had arisen. A sympathetic person would carry out the law in a proper manner, but the door is left open for unsympathetic and unfair treatment, and very heavy burdens might be imposed as a result of a mere assumption. That is carrying things too far, and I hope that the Minister will reconsider the words. It almost seems to me as though they might even encourage blacklegging in a trade dispute; the possible ramifications of a trade dispute are very great indeed.
We are not pleading that people directly concerned in a stoppage should receive any favours, but this is like throwing a stone into a pool—its results will probably go much further than anyone would expect. It is too wide and sweeping in its application. It will be possible for the board to transfer these powers to the assistance officer. We ought to look at it from the point of view of common sense. A large number of disputes have been brought about by the action of employers, but the whole of the punishment is going to fall upon the workers and not upon the employers at all. The employers may try to impose some condition on their people which may be reasonable or unreasonable, but there is no punishment on them. The Minister ought to see the injustice of the whole position. Punishment ought not to be imposed on the workers for something over which they have no control. If the Minister would take the matter back for further consideration, I believe it would meet the wishes of the Committee.

8.28 p.m.

Mr. HUDSON: I am glad the hon. Member has put down this Amendment because it enables me to relieve his mind of a genuine misapprehension. I realise now the fear that he had in mind. When I saw the Amendment on the Paper, I did not quite understand what his difficulty was. May I first explain what the effect of his Amendment would be. If two men were employed at a factory, one insured and the other not insured, and there was a trade dispute, the man who was insured would be prohibited under the Clause from coming under Part II. He would have to go to the public assistance committee. The result of leaving out the words would be that a man who was uninsured would get an advantage as compared with the man who was insured. I am sure that is not what the hon. Member had in mind.

Mr. PARKINSON: A man who is uninsured will come under Part II.

Mr. HUDSON: No, the Clause applies only to men who were at work at the time of the stoppage. The words are: "would have been so disqualified," not "would have been so employed." The whole object of these words is to put the uninsured man on the same basis as the insured man. They are both at work in a factory where there is a trade dispute, and they both suffer the same fate; that is, they do not come under Part II but go to the public assistance authorities. But it appears that the hon. Member had another fear. What would happen in the case of the head of a household who was disqualified, who had two adult sons not employed and not engaged in any way in the dispute? He seemed to fear that those two youths would also suffer owing to the disqualification of the father. They certainly would not. It would be open to them, if they were otherwise qualified, to come under Part II because they would not be engaged in a trade dispute, and they would, therefore, not suffer the father's disqualification. I do not know whether I have succeeded in a very complicated matter in making the position clear. If I have, I hope the hon. Member will realise that there is a genuine misunderstanding of the words and that the Amendment would really create an injustice as between the insured and the uninsured man.

8.31 p.m.

Mr. T. SMITH: I was pleased to hear the Parliamentary Secretary put a different meaning on these words. May I put a case to him? Some pits sign men on only on certain days. Suppose an unemployed man got signed on on a Monday to start on the following Thursday, and on the Wednesday a dispute took place, which later was decided by the Umpire to be a trade dispute within the meaning of the Unemployment Insurance Act, and the men, therefore, were not entitled to benefit. What would that man's position be?

8.32 p.m.

Mr. HUDSON: That is a hypothetical question which it is a little difficult to answer without notice. All I can say is that the man would not be in any way prejudiced by this paragraph as compared with his position at present. I imagine that in the ultimate resort the person who would have to decide the matter would be the Umpire in the light of all the circumstances of the case. All that this wording does is to put the insured and the uninsured man in the same situation. If the Umpire decided that the insured man was qualified for benefit, he would come under Part II, and so would the unemployed man, but, if it was decided that they were not entitled to benefit, neither would come under this part of the Act.

8.34 p.m.

Mr. BUCHANAN: This is to some extent governed by the Seventh Schedule, which says:
A public assistance authority shall not order out-door relief to be given to any person who by a decision for the time being in force has been decided to be a person to whom Part II of this Act applies.
It is a question whether the public assistance committee will be allowed to give relief at all. That seems to me the most important point of all. I see the point in this Clause. If a man is unemployed and has a claim to benefit, Part II will not treat him differently from Part I, and the Umpire is a determining factor in a trade dispute as at present, but I am much concerned as to whether miners in a trade dispute can be reliever by a Poor Law authority. As I read the Schedule of the Bill, it seems to come within Part II, and there is no subsequent part of the Clause which puts it
outside Part II. The man is obviously under Part I or Part II, and the Bill does not exclude those who are in a trade dispute from Part I or Part II.

Mr. HUDSON: If the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) will look at page 30 of the Bill, line 20, he will see that the words are:
deemed not to be a person to whom this Part of this Act applies.
That means that he is excluded from Part II of the Act.

Mr. BUCHANAN: Does it mean that under the Seventh Schedule the Poor Law authority will be allowed to relieve him if they think it desirable to do so? If that is so, it is the point I required to be met.

Mr. HUDSON: Certainly, the answer is "Yes," within the powers at present specified of public assistance authorities, and in the light of the power which—speaking from memory I think it was on 10th August, 1929—the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Greenwood) stated to belong to public assistance committees.

Mr. BUCHANAN: Poor Law public assistance committees are allowed to relieve wives and families and not the man. In Scotland that is the law, and I do not want any interference with that right. It should be allowed to continue. Whoever is in the battle, at least the wives and children should be kept out of it, and the right of relieving them should be maintained.

Mr. HUDSON: I can give an assurance to the hon. Member for Gorbals that the Bill makes no difference whatever to the existing rights of the public assistance committees, whatever those rights may be at the moment.

8.38 p.m.

Mr. PARKINSON: Let us assume a case of a man on strike, who has a son who has never worked, but who receives benefit. Would the public officer have the power to refuse benefit to the son who had never been at work on the ground of the probability, that, if he had been employed, he would have been employed at the mine, and at the moment would be unemployed through the stoppage?

Mr. HUDSON: The hon. Member refers to a man who, although he had attained the age of 16, and had not actually had any work, might, under item b (ii) of Sub-section (1),
reasonably have expected that his normal occupation would have been such employment as aforesaid.
Perhaps the hon. Member refers to that provision.

Mr. PARKINSON: I am referring to a man in respect of whom, owing to a stoppage in a particular colliery, the assistance officer would refuse benefit on the ground that if he had been employed he would in all probability have been employed in the mine at the moment of the strike, and consequently would have been unemployed as a result of the dispute.

Mr. HUDSON: That again is a hypothetical question, and I suppose that in the ultimate result, it would be answered by the umpire. It is stretching probabilities a good long way to suggest that one of these men who had never had employment at all, and who was nevertheless now not receiving benefit but an allowance under Part II, would have been engaged in the particular pit and no other, even though, of course, the father was employed there. If there was any doubt in the matter, it would always be open to the men to appeal to the court of referees and to the Umpire.

Mr. PARKINSON: We are all agreed on this side that everything is hypothetical in this Clause.

8.42 p.m.

Mr. MAINWARING: The term "trade dispute" here remains as indefinite as it has ever been. If an employer offered a resumption of work to a body of men upon terms less favourable than those previously obtained, I take it that it would be regarded under this Bill as a condition of a trade dispute, and that all the workmen, insurable and non-insurable, would be deemed to be outside the operation of this Bill.

Mr. HUDSON: The hon. Member knows that there has gradually been built up a very considerable body of case law as to the precise meaning of a trade dispute. That case law is not being interfered with in any way by the present Bill. That which is a trade dispute now will be
a trade dispute to-morrow, and that which is not a trade dispute to-day will not be a trade dispute to-morrow. The situation will remain exactly as it is at present.

Mr. MAINWARING: Is there not a case for an alteration in the terms of this Bill in view of what things are now as the result of the case law referred to by the hon. Gentleman?

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: No doubt the hon. Member can make out an admirable case, but I am afraid that the matter does not arise on the Amendment, which applies to a very limited point.

8.44 p.m.

Mr. BATEY: May I put this further point to the Parliamentary Secretary in order to see if he can clear it up. I understand that under Part II of this Bill an unemployment committee takes over all able-bodied men—those receiving transitional payment now and those on the Poor Law. Are we to understand that in the future, if an able-bodied man is disqualified from benefit because of a trade dispute, he can go to the public assistance committee?

Mr. HUDSON: indicated assent.

Amendment negatived.

8.45 p.m.

Mr. J. REID: I beg to move, in page 30, line 21, at the end, to insert:
(2) A person whose normal occupation has been employment in respect of which contributions are payable under the Widows', Orphans', and Old Age Contributory Pensions Act, 1925 to 1932, shall not be held to be disqualified under the immediately preceding sub-section by reason only of the length of time which has elapsed since he was last employed in such occupation, or of his having undertaken other work at a time when he was unable to obtain employment in his normal occupation.
I move this Amendment for the purpose of obtaining an explanation. In the ordinary course of events, during the last few years a number of people have been ruled out of transitional payment and have been sent to the Poor Law, roughly, on the ground that they are no longer normally employed in the industry in which they formerly worked, because they have been such a long time out of work. I imagine that it is the purpose of the Government that all these persons, if they once were in an insurable employment, shall come into Part II of the Bill even if they have been unemployed for
10 years, and have fallen out of National Health Insurance. If the Parliamentary Secretary can give me an assurance that those who have once been insured in National Health Insurance and who have now fallen out of insurance will, nevertheless, come into Part II, the first part of my Amendment will be satisfied.
It may be that the Parliamentary Secretary will have a little more difficulty in meeting the second part of the Amendment. It covers a very important and genuine case, and I hope the Government can meet it within the four corners of the Bill. You may have two people one of whom has drawn benefit or transitional payment without making any particular effort to find a job in any industry, for, it may be, five years. His own industry is closed to him; there are no jobs in it. He might have got a hawker's barrow or have set up in a small shop, but he does not do that and has gone on drawing benefit or transitional payment for years. The other man, being more independent, has set up in a small shop, or taken a barrow, or taken up some other non-insurable occupation as a temporary measure to keep himself and his family during the time that his own industry is in a depressed condition and overcrowded. It is obviously unfair that the man who has simply sat down and drawn benefit should come under Part II, whereas the man who has made some attempt to help himself and has taken up for the time being a non-insurable occupation should fall out of Part II and have to resort to the Poor Law. I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will be able to admit that case as well as the other.

8.49 p.m.

Mr. HUDSON: I think I can relieve the legitimate fears of my hon Friend. As I explained just now, the words at the beginning of this Clause are not to be regarded as the conditions which a man has to fulfill in order to obtain an allowance, but the qualifications which, if he possesses them, automatically bring him within the scope of Part II of the Bill. The Committee will appreciate that there is a very definite distinction. The hon. Member for Stirling and Falkirk (Mr. J. Reid) raises the same point as the hon. Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. Lawson) and points out that very large numbers of insured persons have
been disallowed transitional payment on the ground that they were not normally in insurable employment, or would not normally seek to obtain their livelihood by means of insurable employment. That was a condition for receiving transitional payment.
Under Part II we have tried to make the scope of the provision as wide as possible in order to cover substantially the industrial field. The question that will be put to a man is: "What is your normal occupation?" or, "Have you a normal occupation?" That is a question of fact, and the board and its officers and the chairman of the Appeal Tribunals will, in the light of discussion in the House and the determination of the Government, interpret it in the widest sense and take a broad view of the whole of the man's industrial life. If he has been following an insurable occupation for a considerable period but through circumstances outside his control has been unable any longer to pursue that occupation, that will not of itself be regarded as taking him outside the scope of the industrial field and of Part II. The fact that he has been insurable will normally bring him in. I hope the hon. Member will realise that the words that he suggests would really in practice not work, because the length of the period of unemployment is not defined.
Even if we agreed that the mere fact of being unemployed for a long period was not in itself sufficient to bring the man outside the scope of Part II, the length of that period would depend upon industrial circumstances. Whereas, for example, you might legitimately say that a man on Tyneside or in Durham who had been out of work for six, seven, eight or even nine years was still substantially within the industrial field, you would not be able to say that a man who had not had any work in London for nine years was still within the industrial field. Therefore, the definition of long unemployment would not suffice without a number of other qualifying words. What we have in mind is that the mere length of time a man has been unemployed will not of itself, without a host of other circumstances, put him outside the scope of Part II.
My hon. Friend raised a second point, as to what would happen if a man took up a non-insurable occupation. It is clear that, here again, you have to look at the man's whole life. If the man had been in an insurable occupation during the major portion of his life and had merely taken up uninsurable work as a stop-gap in order to find something to do and to tide him over a time of difficulty, obviously that man would not have forfeited his right to be regarded as inside Part II of the Act. Suppose a man had definitely invested capital that he had accumulated in a business, during such time as he was running that business, obviously he would not be within Part II, but suppose he lost his capital and that his only recourse then was to go back to being an employed person, the Board's officers might well say that that man again came within the scope of Part II. The case in which the taking up of uninsurable work would put him outside the insurance field would be where there were other circumstances which tended to show that the man had definitely abandoned insurable employment. I hope I have succeeded in allaying my hon. Friend's fears and that he may see his way to withdraw the Amendment.

8.55 p.m.

Mr. LAWSON: In the latter case that the Parliamentary Secretary mentions, that of the person who has left an insurable industry in order to take up business or other uninsurable work, it might have been added that under the 1930 Act it was possible to go into an insurable industry before the transition came into operation, to be out for four years, and to go back and still be out of the scheme for benefit. I think that the definition in Sub-section (1, b, ii):
The normal occupation would have been such employment as aforesaid but for the industrial circumstances of the district in which he resides.
is a very good definition. It is quite clear as far as the definitely depressed areas are concerned. A man might be out of work for eight or 10 years in an area of that kind. For many years there have been areas that were depressed, though for purposes of the Department they were not counted as depressed. In certain industries that have been heavily hit there have been people out of work for a long time, but the area as a whole
was not such as to be compared with, say, certain areas in Scotland or in Durham or South Wales, and it was not counted as depressed. I hope that the interpretation of that part of this Sub-section which deals with the industrial circumstances of the district will not be determined by the board along the lines of the previous standards for depressed districts. I think the Parliamentary Secretary sees my point. There has been a standard for depressed districts. In those depressed districts it was clear to all that there was wholesale unemployment. But there were depressed areas on a small scale that were not counted as such for transference purposes. For instance, when a man moved he did not get payment for his removal to another part of the country. Can the Parliamentary Secretary give an assurance that those areas which have hitherto not been scheduled as depressed areas will not be ruled out of this general definition, which in itself is good enough if the minds of members of the board are not prejudiced by the standard previously set up?

8.59 p.m.

Mr. HUDSON: The assurance I can give the hon. Member is that this will form the subject of instructions issued by the board for the guidance of its officers. Where you have a very small depressed area in the middle of a much larger non-depressed area not quite the same considerations apply as where a man lives in the middle of a large depressed area. The situation of a girl in Oldham, as regards the prospects of getting a job, is not quite the same as that of a miner's son in Chester-le-Street. Although both regard themselves as depressed areas, having regard to the wider area around they might not be depressed. But that will form the subject of instructions for the guidance of the board's officers.

9.0 p.m.

Sir ROBERT ASKE: What the Minister has said is certainly very comforting for many representatives of certain areas where this matter has been one of considerable difficulty, but I ask the Minister to consider between now and the Report stage whether it is not possible to put some words into the Bill in order to give effect to the assurance that he has given to the Committee. I say that for this
reason: This word "normal" is in existing legislation and it is a word which has given rise to much difficulty. The authorities who have had to administer the existing legislation have determined as a matter of administration that the person who seeks to prove that he is normally engaged in insurable work fails to do so if he has been out of work for a certain period, but has been engaged in non-insurable work, even for a limited period, and then ceases that work. Sub-section (2), as I understand it, refers only to cases where a person has not had any work at all since attaining 16 years of age. I should be glad if the Minister could make it clear, so that whoever comes to administer the Act will not regard the mere fact of having temporarily been in non-insurable work as a disqualification. We want to ensure that the person would not be disqualified merely by the fact that he had made some effort to help himself and had failed, and then had to come back and re-register.

9.2 p.m.

Mr. KINGSLEY GRIFFITH: I would like to reinforce what has been said by the last speaker. I think the Minister has a perfectly clear idea of the way in which he expects this Clause to work, but we have no assurance that it will work that way. We have had the same experience before. Previous Ministers have assured us that certain words had what seemed to us a plain and intelligible meaning, but subsequently in administration they were found to be interpreted quite differently. As has been said, it is the word "normal" over which we have tripped. No one expected, when the words "not normally" were put forward before, that in fact they were to be extended so far in interpretation that they would bring back practically all of those whom we thought we had saved by abolishing the "genuinely seeking work" provision. Yet that happened. Now we have the assurance that Sub-section (2) affects only those who have not been normally engaged in any remunerative occupation since they were 16 years of age. They are a special part of the problem, and by no means the whole of it. The cases I have in mind are the cases of people who have been in one kind of occupation and through a very laudable desire to help themselves
have been forced into another, and then they have been disqualified.
I agree with what the Minister says, that we are not dealing with precisely the same words here. He distinguished between a condition and a qualification. I think that the distinction might prove to be a very narrow one, and I am afraid that if something on the lines of this Amendment is not inserted in the Clause we shall get exactly the same mistakes made under this new interpretation as were made under the old. Although the Minister may intend to give a very wide interpretation to bring all these people in, those who have to administer the Bill may give a different interpretation which will put all these people out. We want to be quite sure. I ask the Minister to realise that we cannot feel assured unless something is put into the Bill. The Amendment expresses lucidly what we want, and if the Minister cannot accept it will he find some words which will ensure that we shall not get the same kind of trouble as we have had in the past?

9.5 p.m.

Mr. HUDSON: I think the hon. Member for West Middlesbrough (Mr. K. Griffith) and the hon. and learned Member for East Newcastle-on-Tyne (Sir R. Aske) are both labouring under a slight misapprehension. The words in the Bill are not the words that are alleged to have caused trouble in the past. What we are dealing with here is not the question whether a man is normally employed in an insurable occupation or might be normally employed in an insurable occupation under the unemployment insurance scheme. What we are dealing with is normal occupation from the point of view of the Widows', Orphans' and Old Age Pensions Acts, which is a different thing. What the board's officer has to decide first is whether the man is normally in any occupation at all. That is a question of fact on which I suggest there is no room for any considerable difficulty arising. When that question has been decided, it has then to be decided whether the man's normal occupation is one in respect of which contributions are payable under the Widows', Orphans' and Old Age Pensions Acts. I think that the hon. Members who
have raised this point will realise that that is quite a different matter from the question whether or not a man fulfils the conditions applying to transitional payments.

9.7 p.m.

Mr. CAPORN: I would support the appeal of the hon. and learned Member for East Newcastle-on-Tyne (Sir R. Aske). The Parliamentary Secretary told us that the question of whether a man was normally in an occupation or not was a question of fact, but with great respect I suggest that the question of a man's normal occupation in the other circumstances indicated is equally a question of fact. I am a little afraid that if this Clause goes through without some definition of "normal occupation" we may find that this body, which, despite all that has been said, is an independent body, may feel bound to follow the decisions given already on similar words though under slightly different conditions. They will be unable to look up the speech of the Parliamentary Secretary for the purpose of ascertaining what was in the mind of the Government and the same interpretation may be given as was given before, and we may find ourselves back in the same difficulty. I hope he will give us the assurance that he will consult the Law Officers in order to make quite certain that there is no need for any further definition and that, if there is such a need, he will introduce words to meet it.

Mr. HUDSON: I can certainly give my hon. Friend that assurance.

9.9 p.m.

Mr. BUCHANAN: I ask the Committee to note the words "whose normal occupation is employment in respect of which contributions are payable under the Widows, Orphans and Old Age Contributory Pensions Act." At the present time a man passes out of the Health Acts at the end of two years and nine months. If he has been two years and nine months unemployed he passes out of health insurance with the exception of that portion of the Act relating to the right to a pension up to 1935. It seems to me that in such a case that man's normal period is finished. The law says that he is no longer covered by those Acts, and in order to come within those Acts again he must start to qualify
again. It seems clear that a man who has been two years and nine months unemployed must automatically go outside this, because the other Act says that when he has been out for that length of time, in order to qualify to be a contributor again he must start de novo. At the end of two years and nine months that man's occupation has ceased to be an occupation within the Widows, Orphans and Old Age Pensions Act, unless you are going to bring in something which will safeguard his right.
Under the Bill as I see it, the condition as to "not normally in insurable occupation" is abolished but in place of it, you have set a definite limit covered by the Health Acts and until the Minister introduces something overriding it that will be the law. I think I know what is in the Parliamentary Secretary's mind. In the case of a shipyard worker in Glasgow who has been seven years without work, the Parliamentary Secretary says, in effect, that that man is covered because if he had got work during the seven years, it would have been in an insurable occupation. But that applies to the boy who has never worked at all. The Health Insurance Act says to a man "You are no longer a health insurance contributor; you are no longer covered by the Act; for normal purposes you pass outside it—that is to say your normal occupation is finished as far as that Act is concerned." Unless there is something to override it, that other Act must have a considerable bearing upon this question.

9.12 p.m.

Mr. HUDSON: I think the explanation is fairly simple. It comes back to what I said earlier that these words at the beginning of Clause 35 do not lay down conditions that the man has to fulfil in order to receive an allowance. They state the qualification the possession of which enables him to come automatically within the scope of Part II. The problem is, what is his normal occupation. Supposing that a man is a coal-miner. The mere fact that he has been out of work for two years and nine months does not make him cease to be a coal-miner. Coal mining remains his normal occupation, and as soon as the pit re-opens whether after three years or five years or ten years he will go back to it and will again follow his occupation as a coal-miner. Unless he takes steps in the interval to divest
himself of it, that remains his occupation. It is that qualification which brings him within Part II and not the fact that whether this month or this year or last month or last year, he happens to have paid contributions. The question is whether, if he had been employed, he would have been employed in an occupation in which he would have had to pay Widows', Orphans' and Old Age Contributory Pensions Act contributions.

9.15 p.m.

Mr. LEWIS: Those of us who sit here are at a little disadvantage, because we did not hear clearly what the Parliamentary Secretary said in reply to an appeal from the opposite side as to his consulting the Law Officers of the Crown. We cannot make up our minds whether he said that he certainly would or that he certainly would not consult them, and if he would tell us what he did say, it would assist us in coming to a decision.

Mr. HUDSON: I said I would.

Mr. J. REID: In view of that assurance and also of the assurance that the Government will see that the two classes of people with whom the Amendment deals are covered, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

9.16 p.m.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: The next Amendment that I select is that in the name of the hon. and gallant Member for Tiverton (Lieut.-Colonel Acland-Troyte)—in page 30, line 38, after "applies" insert:
may be raised by any person (including a public assistance authority) and.

Mr. LAWSON: On a point of Order. May I ask what is the reason for your ruling out the Amendment in the name of the hon. Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool (Mr. Logan)—in line 31, to leave out "may" and insert "shall"?

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I did not rule it out. I merely did not select it. If the hon. Member presses it as of great importance, I will select it, but it did not seem to me of great importance.

9.17 p.m.

Mr. LAWSON: I beg to move, in page 30, line 31, to leave out "may," and to insert "shall."
I wanted to ask the Parliamentary Secretary a question. This is a case in which a man may be deemed to be capable of and available for work notwithstanding certain periods of sickness, and it says:
Rules made under this Part of the Act may provide that a person shall … be deemed to be capable of and available for work.
I wanted to ask if the hon. Gentleman could not make that "shall," so that occasional sickness as a test whether a man is capable or not shall be put within the Rule definitely.

9.18 p.m.

Mr. HUDSON: I do not think in this case there is any material difference between "may" and "shall," because it is fairly clear that the board will have to draw up rules for the guidance of its officers determining what period of sickness is to be regarded as appropriate. I think the hon. Member may rest assured that these rules will be made, otherwise the board could not possibly carry out its duties.

Mr. LAWSON: Then why not accept the Amendment?

Mr. HUDSON: Subject to correction—I have been in the House for some time, and I think the hon. Member has been in the House even longer—I think he will find that the wording is always "may." I have heard this point raised by every Opposition, when it has been suggested that "shall" ought to be inserted instead of "may," and my recollection is that the Government have always resisted it.

Amendment negatived.

9.19 p.m.

Mr. GRAHAM WHITE: I beg to move, in page 30, to leave out lines 39 to 44, and to insert:
determined by the same persons and in the same manner as if the question had arisen upon a claim for benefit under the Unemployment Insurance Acts.
This is one of several Amendments which aim, without destroying the structure of Part II of the Bill, at co-ordinating the activities and also the policy to some extent of the two independent parties to what has been described as this three-decker or tripartite scheme of dealing with help for the unemployed. It may be that if an Amendment on the
previous Clause to substitute the local advisory committee of the Ministry of Labour for the advisory committee proposed to be set up under Part I had been reached, the Minister might have accepted that Amendment, and if he had, it would have been in order for him to have accepted this Amendment also, as indeed I hope he will. The Royal Commission, in both its Majority and Minority Reports, did not envisage three independent bodies and authorities dealing with different sections for the help of the unemployed. They envisaged a unitary system. We have now two independent bodies, and very weighty arguments have been addressed to the Committee from various quarters pointing out that there will almost inevitably develop a clash of policies and practice between the three parties to the scheme. These Amendments have for their object, not to destroy the structure of Part II, but to make it more workable than it appears to be at present. Some of us are very much impressed, I might almost say oppressed, by the difficulties which may arise from the clash of policies between these bodies, and we would seek to bring those policies into some kind of relationship.
With regard to the Amendment, which we have asked to be taken with other Amendments, so that its full import may be seen, we are impressed by the difficulties which will arise from the practice of setting up a large number of appeal committees without any co-ordinating authority between them. Under the practice and administration of the Ministry of Labour in connection with unemployment insurance, we have a perfectly well recognised practice. There the insurance officer decides cases, and in cases of doubt they go before a court of referees. The court of referees decides the matter, but if again there is doubt, in certain circumstances they go to the Umpire. The decision of the Umpire, when taken, is given to all the courts of referees and the local employment committees throughout the land, and the result is that case law is built up, which is perfectly satisfactory and which ensures uniformity of treatment throughout the whole of the districts. Whether the practice gives satisfaction or not, there it is. It is well understood, and it gives uniformity of treatment.
It is to be observed that, in connection with the administration of some parts of our help to the unemployed, one of the matters which has given the greatest dissatisfaction has been the unevenness of treatment in regard to allowances and the like as between one district and another. When we come to look at the proposals here, which will set up appeal committees in such districts as may be determined, there is no indication as to how many committees will be set up, but if the number of committees corresponds roughly to the number of courts of referees under the Unemployment Insurance Acts, and there is no co-ordinating authority between them, it opens up a vista of confusion and administrative difficulty of the very first order. Therefore, we propose that, instead of these unco-ordinated committees, the task should be performed by those bodies which are operating at the present time and which have all the experience that is necessary. Something of this kind is essential if there is not to be great dislocation and confusion resulting from the operation of these committees.
These appeal committees will have an extraordinarily difficult task to perform. For example, they will have to decide a very large number of cases chiefly turning on the definition of the terms "normal" and "normality," of the kind which we have been discussing on the previous Amendment. There may be objections which we shall have to take to the constitution of thse appeal committees when we come to the Sixth Schedule, but it is clear that the establishment of these independent committees without any co-ordinating authority, without any machinery by which case-law can be built up, opens up a system which will lead to complete confusion and give very bad decisions.

9.26 p.m.

Mr. HUDSON: I am sure the hon. Member for East Birkenhead (Mr. White) will forgive me if I suggest that, although the speech which he has just delivered would have been perfectly appropriate to the Amendment on the previous Clause, it is not appropriate when we are discussing the question of scope. The appeal tribunal with which we are dealing here has to decide purely questions of scope: whether a man does or does
not come within Part II of the Bill; in other words, whether or not a man follows a normal occupation in respect of which contributions would be payable under the Widows', Orphans' and Old Age Pensions Acts. He said something about the necessity of building up case-law and of seeing that the various decisions were co-ordinated. If he would look at the top of the next page, he would see that there is a proviso that in case of dispute questions shall be referred to the Minister of Health. The court of referees and the Umpire under the Unemployment Insurance Acts have never decided such questions. In the case of unemployment insurance the person who decides whether a man is insurable is the Minister of Labour. In the case of the Pensions Acts, the person who decides whether or not a man's occupation is insurable is the Minister of Health, with the right of appeal in certain circumstances on points of law to the High Court. It is the duty of the insurance officers to see in the first place whether or not a man comes within Part II, and if any question arises the appeal will go to the appeal tribunal, and any case under the Pensions Acts will go to the Minister of Health. Therefore, while there might have been something to be said for this Amendment taken in conjunction with the previous Amendments to Clause 34, if they had been carried, as it stands it is meaningless.

9.29 p.m.

Mr. COVE: I want to emphasise the point made by the hon. Member, or to extend it a little further. The hon. Gentleman has replied that what we have contended all along is right. It is obvious from the scheme itself and from the speech to which we have just listened that it is impossible to mix Part I with Part II. Clearly, Part I and its ordinary machinery are intended to be placed upon what is called an insurance principle, with an insurance scheme. The Minister of Health now comes in, and he is the final arbiter. Therefore, since Part II is Poor Law relief, with the means test and all the apparatus that applies to Poor Law relief, it is obviously impossible for the Minister to accept this Amendment mixing the two schemes together. I sympathise with the object of my hon. Friends, but they must bear
it clearly in mind that the Minister intends that those who come under Part II shall be treated as paupers.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member is now straying somewhat outside the scope of the Amendment. Whatever the treatment of people who come under Part II may be, it will not be affected if this Amendment is carried.

Mr. COVE: I only wish to emphasise in a nutshell what the Minister has told us: that this machinery in Part II must be confined to machinery which has for its object the administration of Poor Law relief.

9.31 p.m.

Mr. HOROBIN: I do not want to press the Parliamentary Secretary, but as I understand his answer he agrees with us that some machinery for appeal corresponding to the Umpire is necessary to review these decisions, and the answer of my hon. Friend is that it is provided in the Bill. That may be so, but I suggest to him that his answer did not fully show that to be the case. I refer particularly to proviso (a) on page 31, where there is provided appropriate machinery for deciding the question whether any particular employment is employment in respect of which contributions are payable under the Pensions Act. Let me take this case. He mentioned a little time ago the case of a coal miner who had not been down the pit for 10 years, and who said that when the pit reopened he would go down the pit, and that would be his normal occupation. That is all right, but suppose that in the course of the 10 years the man has endeavoured to set up a small shop of his own in a laudable effort to find employment. That does not come under the Widows', Orphans' and Old Age Pensions Act, and the question might arise for a decision whether, having opened a shop, run it for three years and gone broke and shut it up, it has taken him out of the normal employment of coal mining. That is not a question of whether coal mining is suitable employment under the Pensions Act. The point would then come up for decision, for how long a period employment which was admitted not to be under that Act was necessary to take him out of it within the meaning of the words "normal
occupation." Cases of a similar sort may arise, and I am not clear in my mind that the Parliamentary Secretary's answer satisfactorily ensures that there is always a proper appeal. I do not want to press the point, but I think it is one which we should decide.

Miss HORSBRUGH: I should like to ask the Parliamentary Secretary if that does not come under the Amendment with which we have finished? The last Amendment was withdrawn because we had an assurance that these very people who had gone out of work in an industry and had taken up other work would be covered by that provision.

Mr. HOROBIN: If the Parliamentary Secretary will give me the assurance th[...] that is so, I will not press the point.

9.33 p.m.

Mr. HUDSON: I do not know whether the hon. Member for Central Southwark (Mr. Horobin) was in his place when I was explaining the matter, but I took particular care to show that in all probability the man would be regarded as being within the scope of the Acts. What the appeal tribunal would have to decide in the case he quoted is whether the man has a normal occupation. If the appeal tribunal said, "Yes, this man's normal occupation is that of a coal miner, from which he departed temporarily in order to try to get temporary work rather than do nothing, and, having failed, he had to seek employment somehow," they would presumably decide that he was a coal miner. If the appeal tribunal decides that his normal occupation is that of a coal miner, the next question for decision is whether coal mining is an occupation in respect of which payment of contribution under the Pensions Acts is necessary. If there is any dispute about that it goes to the Minister of Health.

9.35 p.m.

Mr. HOROBIN: I am afraid I did not make myself plain, and I do not think we are on the same point. I was in my place when the Parliamentary Secretary was speaking, and I think I understood him correctly that the appeal tribunal of "A" district, having that point before them, might settle it in such and such a way and say that the man was normally a coal-miner. The appeal tribunal in district "B" however, may decide the re-
verse. You would thus have one appeal tribunal giving a decision contradictory of another tribunal, but under the Bill that is not a case that can come to the Minister for decision, because the only thing in the Bill which can go to him for decision is whether the employment is employment in respect of which contributions are payable. That is not the point at issue.

Mr. MAINWARING: Is it clear in the case of an appeal against a decision of the officers of the board that the appeal is to the appeal tribunal, since it appears to be implied that the appeal is to the chairman of the appeal tribunal whose decision is final?

9.38 p.m.

Mr. K. GRIFFITH: I think the Minister is confusing two different questions. We know that it is the Minister of Health who has to decide whether an employment is of a particular kind for which contributions are payable. The question is whether a given person is normally within an employment. As far as I can see, there is a whole system of different kinds of appeal. When we come to Clause 35 (1, b, ii) there is another kind of question about a person not having been normally engaged in any remunerative occupation since attaining the age of 16 years. That is another kind of question which has to be decided, and it would not be decided by the Minister of Health, but by a different method of appeal. In Sub-section (3, b) another question is referred for decision and the purpose of my hon. Friend is to adopt the method laid down generally. This question is:
whether a person is disqualified for receiving benefit under the Unemployment Insurance Acts owing to his having lost employment by reason of a stoppage of work which was due to a trade dispute.
That has actually to be referred eventually to the insurance officer and determined
by the same persons and in the same manner as if the question had arisen on a claim for benefit under the Unemployment Insurance Acts.
If that is the right means of dealing with that kind of question under Part II, I cannot see why it is not capable of general application, unless it be that the Minister, in his desire to show his great care for every class under the Bill, deems it necessary to have a different machinery of
appeal for every kind of question that can arise. I do not see what his objection is to accepting the Amendment.

9.40 p.m.

Mr. CAPORN: The explanation of the Parliamentary Secretary would be satisfactory if we could assume that there was only one appeal tribunal. He kept referring to the fact that the matter would be decided by the appeal tribunal. The Sixth Schedule seems to suggest that there will be a number of appeal tribunals. Some of us have the fear that these matters may be decided differently by a number of appeal tribunals having jurisdiction in different parts of the country, and what we are asking is that the Minister should consider providing some co-ordination so that by means of an Umpire authoritative decisions can be given to apply to the whole country. I hope my right hon. Friend will assure us that this matter will be considered, and that between now and the Report stage something will be done to make it certain that we shall not have different decisions.

9.41 p.m.

Mr. HUDSON: The hon. Member is labouring under a misapprehension upon the work of the appeal tribunals. It is a question in each case of the facts, to be decided in the light of the circumstances. There is no question of co-ordination. It is a question of fact—"Is the man a coal-miner or not?" We do not need an Umpire sitting in London who has not seen the man to decide whether John Jones is or is not normally a coalminer. Such co-ordination as is required will be achieved by means of the various regulations and instructions issued by the board to its officers who make a decision in the first instance and who will have an opportunity of appealing to the proper tribunal. It will only be in rare cases that any particular difficulty will arise. It will be a question of fact, which will be decided by the appeal tribunal in the light of the local circumstances. I pointed out that the words "long unemployment," which one hon. Member suggested, were unsatisfactory, because they had a different meaning in Durham from their meaning in London. That is precisely the sort of question which the appeal tribunal is the most effective body to decide in the light of the local circumstances. No question of law arises at all.

Mr. CAPORN: Would my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour consider between now and the Report stage whether he could provide that the chairmen of the appeal tribunals should meet together from time to time to consider any questions on which different decisions had been given and lay down an authoritative decision for the appeal tribunals?

Mr. WHITE: Did I understand my hon. Friend to say that the board would give directions to the chairmen of the appeal tribunals?

Mr. HUDSON: No. But the primary decision whether a man comes within the scope of Part II of the Act is with the officers. Therefore, the great majority of the cases which some hon. Members have in mind as creating difficulties will fall for decision originally on the officers. It is not the question of the conditions on which a man may receive an allowance under Part II. The question of qualification once decided, a man is automatically brought within the scope of Part II.

Amendment negatived.

9.44 p.m.

Mr. LAWSON: I beg to move, in page 30, line 39, to leave out "officers of."
This Sub-section lays it down that the officers of the board shall determine whether a person is within the scope of the Bill or not. We suggest that it is not for the officers to determine that but for the board itself. The Committee will notice that later it is laid down that a person can have an appeal from an officer's decision, and that the decision of the appeal board is final. In any case, of course, the officer will make a certain decision about a person. We think that the matter should be considered by the board and settled by them, and that the appeal should be not from the officers, but from the board. We have had the misfortune or the good fortune, whichever it may be accounted—we regard it as a misfortune—to have some advance experience of this method. Where we have had commissioners operating instead of public assistance committees my experience has been that their officers tend to play for safety. They have a sort of rough and ready plan to which they work. I think the Committee will agree that the officers of the
board would not have quite the same elastic powers in making decisions as the board itself. At an early stage in our experience of the Commissioner in Durham we had to ask that local representatives of trade unions and various organisations should be allowed to interview the Commissioner and put the cases direct before him. My experience throughout the county generally was that the officers did not act upon the highest standard. That is nothing to their discredit, because they have to be safe in their decisions. When we have appeal to the Commissioner, who naturally has much more power, he has been able to reverse the decisions of his officers.
It seems to us that there will be pretty much the same experience here. We think that instead of leaving the officer to decide, with an appeal from him, the board ought to be the authority to give the final decision whether a person is within the ambit of the Bill or not. If there is one question which the board are paid to settle it is this kind of question; and our contention is all the more important in view of the discussions we have had as to the class of persons who will have to apply to the board. All the questions which we have been talking over for the last two hours will be the subject of decisions by these officers of the board, with a right of appeal, and we say that however broad the regulations may be, they are sufficiently grave questions to warrant a decision being given by the board. In any case the officers will decide first, and there is no reason why the board should not overhaul the decision before an appeal is made. I feel that it would make for the better working of the Measure if the words which we propose to omit were deleted.

9.49 p.m.

Mr. HUDSON: The reason why these words were put in was to make quite sure that the two important decisions which will affect the individual, namely, the question of scope and the determination of the amount to be paid, should be made by representatives of the board who are directly responsible. We wish to make it quite clear that the board are responsible for the acts of those who make these decisions. For example, it will not be open to the board to delegate these two particular powers to officers of local
authorities; they will have to be made by officers of the board. In certain circumstances the board may possibly appoint an officer of a local authority to be also an officer of the board for this purpose, but any decision made on these two particular points will have to be made on the definite responsibility of the board, and that is why we have put in these words. It is clear that the board could not, in practice, make the determinations in the very large number of cases occurring in all parts of the country, and if the words were left out, we should have to put in some such Clause as exists in the Unemployment Insurance Act of 1920, which says that anything required or authorised under the Act to be done by, to or before the Minister of Labour may be regarded as having been done by, to or before a Secretary to the Ministry or by, to or before an assistant secretary, or any other person authorised by him. We have not put such a Clause in this Bill, but have substituted for it the words "officers of the board." If we accepted the hon. Member's Amendment we should, for practical purposes of administration, have to put in such a Clause in order to enable the board to delegate its authority to its officers.
I think on reflection that the hon. Member will agree that the parallel with the Commissioners is not quite exact, because there the appeal lay from the officers to the commissioners, and here the appeal does not lie from the officers of the board to the board but from the officers of the board to an outside tribunal. Therefore, in some ways, the men coming under Part II of the Bill will be in a more favourable position than people in Durham, because they will be able to appeal to an outside tribunal instead of appealing from Caesar's officers to Caesar.

9.53 p.m.

Mr. BATEY: This is a small Amendment but a most important one, because it puts the men who come under Part II in a different position from those under Part I. Under Part I the officer had very little power as to reducing the benefit. Various Measures we have passed have prevented an officer from having that large power, and the question has to go to the court of referees. Here the question is to be left to the officer. We may get a good officer, but,
also we may get an officer who is not so good. Seeing that he has to decide the means test, has to decide the amount which will be paid to an individual, he is exercising an enormous responsibility. Even although we dislike the present system of public assistance, it is not one person there who gives the decision. It is so easy for one person to make a mistake, and where it is a matter of almost life and death to the applicant, we ought to hesitate before conferring such power on one man. The Parliamentary Secretary says that it will be impossible to send every appeal to the appeal tribunal for them to decide the amount of relief to be paid to an individual. That ought not to be difficult. It would be a safeguard if, before the officer acted upon his decision, he reported the matter to the appeal tribunal. It is an important function if one person has to make a decision whether 15s. 3d. or 7s. should be paid, and is the most dangerous thing in this part of the Bill. It is contrary to what is in Part I, and it is dangerous to leave the whole application of the means test to one individual.

The CHAIRMAN: I think the hon. Member is misreading the Clause. It is only a question of deciding whether a person is or is not a person to whom this Part of the Bill applies.

Mr. LAWSON: I think that it was the Parliamentary Secretary himself who first raised the question of the amount to be decided. I do not dispute your Ruling for a moment, because it is true that it is a question of persons who are or who are not under this Part of the Act, as the Parliamentary Secretary has said.

Mr. BATEY: Perhaps I was putting a rather wider construction upon the words than I should, in referring to the means test. It certainly does apply to those who are affected by trades disputes. We have had a long experience of trade disputes, and a lot of people——

The CHAIRMAN: That question does not come under this Amendment, any more than does the question of amount.

9.57 p.m.

Mr. BUCHANAN: May I ask only one question, subject to your Ruling? May a person be accompanied before the officer by someone else? Has he a right
to go accompanied by his trade union representative or some other person, or does this Clause cut him out from that? This Clause is to decide whether a person comes under Part II or not. Is there anything to deny him the privilege of bringing another person, when he appears before the chairman of the tribunal? Complications may arise in the consideration of the question as to whether he is under Part II. Obviously the officers must put questions in order to settle the point, and they may have to decide important questions of law and of fact. It may, therefore, be important for the person concerned to have somebody to appear with him, either upon the first appearance before the officer, or at his further appeal.

The CHAIRMAN: I think that I can allow this question to be answered briefly, because it is for the purpose of throwing light upon the Amendment, but I cannot permit a discussion as to questions of procedure.

9.59 p.m.

Mr. HUDSON: I think that the question arises upon another Amendment which is upon the Paper, and I do not know whether I shall be allowed to give an answer. It is fairly clear that any interested parties have the right to appear before the officer. On general grounds we think it is desirable not at present to limit the powers of the board but to leave the board free to determine whether anyone shall have access to the officer. We think the board will lay down instructions and rules as to persons who shall normally have access to the officer.

10.1 p.m.

Major NATHAN: The important question is not who is to exercise the executive function under this subsection but where the responsibility rests. The Parliamentary Secretary proceeded on the footing that under this Clause the officer of the board is acting as the agent of the board. If that were so, it would be all for the good, and I certainly should not raise any question, but by the specific terms of this Sub-section the statutory obligation of deciding the questions which will come for review under it rests not upon the
board but upon an officer of the board. The board, as such, falls upon the Consolidated Fund, and is not susceptible to review in this House for any of its actions, whereas the officer of the board falls upon the Vote and his actions are susceptible to review in this House. The assistance of the learned Solicitor-General might be useful upon this point, because it is merely a question of construction.
By this Sub-section, it is an officer of the board who has to take a decision, but it is by no means stated to be on behalf of the board. If the Parliamentary Secretary will refer to a later Sub-section, he will see that a distinction is drawn. I am referring to Sub-section (5) of Clause 37 and to line 40, page 33, where the board is to act through officers, making it clear that when it comes to a question of investigating the circumstances of applicants for allowances, the responsibility rests with the board, and the statutory responsibility is thrown upon the board as such. In the subsection which we are now discussing, the responsibility of the board is, I submit, excluded, and the responsibility will rest exclusively upon that person who may, for the time being, be exercising these functions, not on behalf of the board, but by virtue of the fact that he is an officer of the board. The two Sub-sections should be brought into line. One of them must have been drafted without due regard to the contents of the other.

10.4 p.m.

Mr. MARTIN: I cannot quite see why an officer of the board should not do one duty, have the appeal tribunal as his superior authority, and state a case for the superior authority. I will go back to what the Parliamentary Secretary said a few minutes ago, in relation to the power of the board, and I would ask a question similar to that put by the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan), not only as to whether someone may go with the man, but as to whether there will be a long time-lag between the decision of the officer and appeal to the tribunal. Many hardships have been created in the past owing to a long time-lag before a decision was made. The hon. Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. Lawson) mentioned the commissioner in Durham, and I am very
glad that he was able to state that he has been successful in prevailing upon the commissioner to change his decision in several cases. I have found exactly the same thing. The commissioner and his officers in Durham have been most reasonable. I ask that a man shall be in a position to get a rapid appeal to the tribunal, and then that he should have every facility to make that rapid appeal as successful as possible. Very often these people cannot present their case, and they are not able to know for some time whether they come under the board or not. I think it is quite right that the officers of the board should be the people to decide this particular point.

10.6 p.m.

Mr. HUDSON: Let me deal first with the point raised by the hon. and gallant Member for North East Bethnal Green (Major Nathan). My hon. and gallant Friend would have found the answer himself if he had read further on in the Sub-section. He only read half way down:
For the purpose of investigating the circumstances of applicants for allowances, the board may act either through its own officers,"—
If he had read on he would have found—
or, if and so long as there are in force arrangements made in that behalf by the board with the Minister or any local authority, through such officers of the Minister, or of the authority, as may be provided by any such arrangement.
That reinforces what I have said. We want the distinction to show that the board is responsible for the decision of its own officers in the two main considerations as they affect the men, namely, scope and determination; but that where it is merely a matter of investigation it is open to the board to employ its own officers or the officers of the local authority. The fact that in investigations we allow the board to use other officers shows that where they only use their own officers there is an added responsibility. I can assure the hon. Member for Blaydon (Mr. Martin) that the rule which will be made by the board, and which must be approved by the Minister of Labour, will provide that in such cases the applicant will be entitled to have a friend to make sure that his case is properly presented.

10.8 p.m.

Mr. GREENWOOD: The Parliamentary Secretary has not met the case we have
tried to put. On an earlier occasion I suggested that the officers of the board were going to be given a responsibility larger than that which is normally given to officers of a Department of State or of a statutory authority. The Clause has been described by the Parliamentary Secretary as a matter of scope. That may look a simple term, but as a matter of fact what the officer is called upon to determine is whether a person is within the scope of Part II of the Bill or not. He is to be called upon to determine whether a man is to be the creature of the Unemployment Assistance Board or whether he must go to the Poor Law. Whatever may be the right procedure—I am not satisfied that the people who are ruled out will not be better off—that is not the point. The point is that of the authority. As a matter of fact, we are putting into the hands of officers of the board the power to determine whether a person falls within one Act of Parliament or within another Act. The Parliamentary Secretary, earlier in the Debates, said that it was merely a matter of phraseology. Why is it that in Act of Parliament after Act of Parliament enormous responsibilities are thrown on the Minister of Labour. In thousands of cases the Minister of Labour never hears of them, knows nothing whatever about them, but he has to take the responsibility for the actions of his officers.
Under the Bill a certain responsibility is placed not on the board, not on the Minister, but on the officers of the board. If a person is ruled out of Part II, or ruled in when perhaps he would like to be out, he has an appeal; but that appeal is final. There is no appeal to the governing authority under this part of the Bill; no appeal to the Unemployment Assistance Board. Here is a board which is to lay down the conditions under which people shall receive assistance but which is not allowed itself to determine who are the people who shall receive that assistance, if there are doubtful cases. That is an illogical position. The Parliamentary Secretary says that this is not an appeal from Caesar to Caesar. The truth is that under the Bill Caesar has himself abdicated. There is the Caesar, the Minister of Labour; he is the person who ought to have taken this supreme authority and be answerable to the House of Commons. But Caesar has departed, and has appointed a sort of
triumvirate, an Unemployment Assistance Board. They are the new Caesars. An ordinary member of the proletariat—I am sorry I have mixed my language a little—a plebeian, having been deprived of the right of an appeal to Caesar cannot even appeal to the sub-Caesar. He has to appeal to a sub-sub-Caesar, after his case has been decided by a sub-sub-sub-Caesar.
The Parliamentary Secretary has got himself into a knot, indeed, it is more than a knot; it is a matter of substantial importance. The question is whether a man is within the scope of Part II of the Bill or not. The reason we are moving the Amendment is to try and bring the Committee back to this point, that this is an enormous bureaucracy, which is going to be worked against the interests of the unemployed. They are unknown and irresponsible—I do not mean without any sense of responsibility, but irresponsible in the sense that they are responsible to no elected body of persons. They may determine whether a man or a woman is within the scope of the Bill or outside it. If one of of these officers—a pure bureaucrat, not responsible to anybody locally at all, and even, in this matter, outside the jurisdiction of the central authority, the Unemployment Assistance Board, which employs and pays him—says that the person is outside, the only appeal that that person has is to an entirely different body, and, if that body also says he is outside, that ends the matter. The board sits there in supreme authority, and there is no appeal to Caesar. I submit to the Committee that that is most unjust, that the Parliamentary Secretary has not answered the case in favour of this Amendment, and that the Committee would be wise to accept it, even in face of the advice which the hon. Gentleman has given.

10.17 p.m.

Mr. HUDSON: I am very anxious not to leave the right hon. Gentleman with any sense of grievance, and, if he thinks it would ease the position in any way, I am prepared, between now and Report, to see whether we can devise a form of words which will make it clear that the responsibility is the board's, although the decision in the first instance will be taken by one of these officers. Obviously, it
will be impossible for the board to take every single one of these decisions. It must sit in London, and it must have the power of delegating to its officers. Provided that the right hon. Gentleman accepts the fact that the board must have the power to delegate its authority to these officers, I will certainly see what can be done between now and Report.

10.18 p.m.

Mr. GREENWOOD: Now we are coming to some basis of understanding. I am not pretending that the board is going to settle every case; obviously it cannot. My point is that the responsibility should be put on the national authority, on whom Parliament is conferring these powers. If the right hon. Gentleman and the Parliamentary Secretary will do that, and will further consider whether there can be some form of appeal beyond the ordinary appeal tribunal—I am not asking for a pledge, but if they will consider that—I am sure that my hon. Friends would be prepared to withdraw their Amendment.

Amendment negatived.

10.19 p.m.

Lieut.-Colonel ACLAND-TROYTE: I beg to move, in page 31, line 19, after "determined," to insert:
subject to the right of the public assistance authority to make written or oral representations thereon.
At present there is an appeal from the insurance officer to the court of referees, and, while I do not suggest that the courts of referees do not judge these cases perfectly fairly, it is well known that they have a tendency to put people off benefit and on to the public assistance committee on rather slight excuses. Accordingly, we feel that the public assistance committee, which already is given a right of appeal, should also be given the right to be heard, which it has not at present, when the appeal is being considered.

10.20 p.m.

Mr. HUDSON: I do not think we can accept this Amendment as it stands, but my right hon. Friend will look into the matter before Report and see whether any form of words can be devised. I hope to have an opportunity of discussing with my hon. and gallant Friend whether some, and if so, what form of words could be accepted.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Major MILNER: I beg to move, in page 31, line 29, at the end, to insert:
Provided also that any question of law may be referred by the chairman of the appeal tribunal direct to the High Court and shall be dealt with in conformity with such rules of court as may be made for the purpose.
This Sub-section provides that:
Any question whether a person is or is not a person to whom this part of this Act applies shall be decided by officers of the board, but any applicant for an allowance under this Part of this Act or any public assistance authority may appeal from any such decision to the chairman of the appeal tribunal.
It would appear that it is the duty of the chairman of the appeal tribunal to deal with an appeal made to him in accordance with paragraphs (a) and (b) at the top of page 31. In any case where dispute or doubt arises whether any employment is employment in respect of which contributions are payable under the Widows', Orphans' and Old Age Contributory Pensions Acts, it is the duty of the chairman to refer the matter to the decision of the Minister of Health in such manner as he may direct. The purpose of the Amendment is to enable the chairman of the appeal tribunal, in the event of any question of law being involved, to refer it, if he thinks right and proper, direct to the High Court instead of to the Minister of Health in the first case and thereafter, in accordance with the present law, the appellant or the public assistance authority would have the right of going to a court of law. The Amendment seeks to do away with the intervening appeal to the Minister of Health and in appropriate cases to give permissive powers to the chairman of the appeal tribunal to refer any question of law to the High Court direct. That would be a great convenience and a great saving of time and expenditure to the appellant and to the public assistance authorities.

10.34 p.m.

The SOLICITOR-GENERAL (Sir Donald Somervell): We have had on previous Amendments the plea that we should as far as possible retain uniformity of procedure and try to fit this Bill in to the existing procedure and machinery and not to duplicate and have parallel procedure which might conflict. Similar questions to this which arise under these Acts, namely, whether employments are employments within the Health Insur-
ance Acts, are referred to the Minister, and since 1912 a very considerable body of case-law has been built up. There is an appeal to the High Court by the Minister, and also a person who is aggrieved by the decision of the Minister can appeal and is completely safeguarded. The person aggrieved is completely safeguarded. He can go, or the Minister himself in a proper case can refer the matter, to the High Court. It has generally been found possible to arrange so that those cases, which have not been very many, are taken by the same judge, and on the whole, I think, it is right to claim that procedure has worked to the general satisfaction of those concerned. I suggest to the Committee that it would be much better to keep the machinery which is laid down in the Bill, namely, that where a question arises as to whether any employment is employment in respect of which contributions are payable, it should go to the Minister, who has for the last 21 years been considering, with his officials in the Department, that very question, with the right of appeal to the High Court from his decision, rather than do as the Amendment would do, namely, give a right not to the person aggrieved, but simply to the chairman of the appeal tribunal to make a reference to the High Court at that stage.
As I understand the Amendment, it would not cut out, whatever its intention, the subsequent right—it would be wrong if it did—of the applicant to go to the Minister of Health, and to go from the Minister of Health to the High Court. It would really be introducing two stages at which the High Court could be resorted to, and it would be also short-circuiting the advantage of going to the Minister who has had to deal with these questions, and who has dealt with them for so long. It would really give no increased right to the applicant, and it would be introducing an unnecessary complication in a procedure which has been found to work well and which may properly be introduced into the Act in the form in which it is. I hope, therefore, that possibly these observations may appeal with some force to the hon. Gentlemen who have put forward the Amendment.

10.28 p.m.

Sir STAFFORD CRIPPS: I am afraid that what the hon. and learned Gentle-
man has said does not quite satisfy us. We want these words inserted in order to short-circuit the Minister in cases where it is obvious to the skilled chairman and to the appeal tribunal that it is a matter that will have to go to the court. It seems unnecessary in this case where you have a skilled chairman, unlike the cases which arise under the Widows', Orphans', and Old Age Contributory Pensions Acts and the National Health Insurance Act, that he should be entitled to say that this is obviously a case which ought to go to the court, and it should go direct to the court, instead of putting the applicant to the trouble of having to go on appeal to the Ministry of Health, and then having to claim his right of appeal from the Minister of Health to the court, and so having to go through three stages. It will only be in cases where someone found competent to judge, the chairman of the appeal tribunal, says: "It is obviously a case which ought to go to the court. It is not worth putting it through another stage to the ultimate Court of Appeal. It is much better to go straight there."
I am sure that the hon. and learned Gentleman will agree with me that in any cases of this sort or of any sort, the more appeals you can cut out the better. The multiplication of appeals is a terrible thing for a litigant or for an applicant of any sort. Where a responsible person says that the case ought to go direct to the courts for decision we are anxious that there should be that opportunity.

That capable person may say: "In this case I am going to refer the matter direct to the court." In another case he may say: "Let it go to the Minister and, if necessary, you may appeal from the Minister to the court. Where this responsible person says that, in his view, considering all the matters, the case should go straight to the court we do ask that that provision may be incorporated in the Bill in order to save in these cases the unnecessary step of the applicant having two appeals to make.

The SOLICITOR-GENERAL: I think possibly in the case suggested the intermediate appeal to the Minister would be purely a formal one. I appreciate the point raised with respect to the skilled chairman. I agree with what the hon. and learned Member has said regarding the advisability of not having a multiplication of appeals, and between now and the Report stage we will certainly look into the matter and see if we can devise a form of words to meet the position.

Sir S. CRIPPS: In those circumstances, I would suggest that my hon. and gallant Friend withdraw his Amendment.

Major MILNER: I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Question put, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."

The Committee divided: Ayes, 221; Noes, 54.

Division No. 111.]
AYES.
[10.33 p.m.


Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel
Brown, Col. D. C. (N'th'l'd., Hexham)
Dower, Captain A. V. G.


Adams, Samuel Vyvyan T. (Leeds, W.)
Buchan-Hepburn, P. G. T.
Dugdale, Captain Thomas Lionel


Agnew, Lieut.-Com. P. G.
Burnett, John George
Duncan, James A. L. (Kensington, N.)


Albery, Irving James
Campbell, Sir Edward Taswell (Brmly)
Dunglass, Lord


Allen, Lt.-Col. J. Sandeman (B'k'nh'd)
Campbell-Johnston, Malcolm
Edmondson, Major A. J.


Anstruther-Gray, W. J.
Caporn, Arthur Cecil
Elliston, Captain George Sampson


Apsley, Lord
Carver, Major William H.
Elmley, Viscount


Asks, Sir Robert William
Castlereagh, Viscount
Emrys-Evans, P. V.


Astor, Maj. Hn. John J. (Kent, Dover)
Cazalet, Thelma (Islington, E.)
Entwistle, Cyril Fullard


Astor, Viscountess (Plymouth, Sutton)
Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. N. (Edgbaston)
Fielden, Edward Brocklehurst


Atholl, Duchess of
Clarke, Frank
Fleming, Edward Lascelles


Balley, Eric Alfred George
Clarry, Reginald George
Flint, Abraham John


Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley
Cobb, Sir Cyril
Ford, Sir Patrick J.


Barclay-Harvey, C. M.
Cochrane, Commander Hon. A. D.
Fremantle, Sir Francis


Bateman, A. L.
Colman, N. C. D.
Ganzonl, Sir John


Beauchamp, Sir Brograve Campbell
Conant, R. J. E.
Gillett, Sir George Masterman


Beaumont, Hon. R.E.B. (Portsm'th, C.)
Craven-Ellis, William
Gledhill, Gilbert


Betterton, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry B.
Crookshank, Capt. H. C. (Gainsb'ro)
Goodman, Colonel Albert W.


Bevan, Stuart James (Holborn)
Croom-Johnson, R. P.
Graham, Sir F. Fergus (C'mb'rl'd, N.)


Blindell, James
Cross, R. H.
Graves, Marjorie


Borodale, Viscount.
Cruddas, Lieut.-Colonel Bernard
Greene, William P. C.


Bossom, A. C.
Culverwell, Cyril Tom
Grimston, R. V.


Boulton, W. W.
Davies, Maj. Geo. F. (Somerset, Yeovil)
Guest, Capt. Rt. Hon. F. E.


Bowyer, Capt. Sir George E. W.
Despencer-Robertson, Major J. A. F.
Guinness, Thomas L. E. B.


Braithwaite, J. G. (Hillsborough)
Dickle, John P.
Gunston, Captain D. W.


Broadbent, Colonel John
Dixon, Rt. Hon. Herbert
Guy, J. C. Morrison


Hacking, Rt. Hon. Douglas H.
Maitland, Adam
Selley, Harry R.


Hanbury, Cecil
Makins, Brigadier-General Ernest
Shaw, Helen B. (Lanark, Bothwell)


Hanley, Dennis A.
Manningham-Buller, Lt.-Col. Sir M.
Shepperson, Sir Ernest W.


Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry
Margesson, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. D. R.
Sinclair, Col. T. (Queen's Unv., Belfast)


Harbord, Arthur
Marsden, Commander Arthur
Skelton, Archibald Noel


Hartland, George A.
Martin, Thomas B.
Smith, R. W. (Ab'rd'n & Kinc'dine, C.)


Haslam, Henry (Horncastle)
Mayhew, Lieut.-Colonel John
Somervell, Sir Donald


Haslam, Sir John (Bolton)
Meller, Sir Richard James
Somerville, Annesley A. (Windsor)


Headlam, Lieut.-Col. Cuthbert M.
Mills, Major J. D. (New Forest)
Soper, Richard


Heilgers, Captain F. F. A.
Molson, A. Hugh Elsdale
Sotheron-Estcourt, Captain T. E.


Hope, Capt. Hon. A. O. J. (Aston)
Moore, Lt.-Col. Thomas C. R. (Ayr)
Southby, Commander Archibald R. J.


Hope, Sydney (Chester, Stalybridge)
Moreing, Adrian C.
Steel-Maitland, Rt. Hon. Sir Arthur


Hornby, Frank
Morris-Jones, Dr. J. H. (Denbigh)
Stewart, J. H. (Fife, E.)


Horsbrugh, Florence
Muirhead, Lieut.-Colonel A. J.
Stones, James


Howitt, Dr. Alfred B.
Munro, Patrick
Storey, Samuel


Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.)
Nall, Sir Joseph
Stourton, Hon. John J.


Hudson, Robert Spear (Southport)
Nation, Brigadier-General J. J. H.
Strauss, Edward A.


Hunter, Dr. Joseph (Dumfries)
Nicholson, Godfrey (Morpeth)
Strickland, Captain W. F.


Hunter, Capt. M. J. (Brigg)
Normand, Rt. Hon. Wilfrid
Stuart, Lord C. Crichton-


Inskip, Rt. Hon. Sir Thomas W. H.
Nunn, William
Sugden, Sir Wilfrid Hart


James, Wing.-Com. A. W. H.
Ormsby-Gore, Rt. Hon. William G. A.
Sutcliffe, Harold


Jesson, Major Thomas E.
Pearson, William G.
Tate, Mavis Constance


Johnston, J. W. (Clackmannan)
Peat, Charles U.
Templeton, William P.


Jones, Lewis (Swansea, West)
Penny, Sir George
Thompson, Sir Luke


Ker, J. Campbell
Peters, Dr. Sidney John
Titchfield, Major the Marquess of


Kerr, Hamilton W.
Petherick, M.
Tree, Ronald


Knight, Holford
Peto, Geoffrey K. (W'verh'pt'n, Bilst'n)
Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement


Lamb, Sir Joseph Quinton
Pickford, Hon. Mary Ada
Tufnell, Lieut.-Commander R. L.


Law, Sir Alfred
Powell, Lieut.-Col. Evelyn G. H.
Wallace, John (Dunfermilne)


Leech, Dr. J. W.
Procter, Major Henry Adam
Ward, Lt.-Col. Sir A. L. (Hull)


Lennox-Boyd, A. T.
Ramsay, T. B. W. (Western Isles)
Ward, Sarah Adelaide (Cannock)


Lewis, Oswald
Ramsbotham, Herwald
Warrender, Sir Victor A. G.


Liddall, Walter S.
Reed, Arthur C. (Exeter)
Waterhouse, Captain Charles


Lindsay, Noel Ker
Reid, James S. C. (Stirling)
Watt, Captain George Steven H.


Little, Graham-, Sir Ernest
Reid, William Allan (Derby)
Wedderburn, Henry James Scrymgeour-


Llewellin, Major John J.
Remer, John R.
Wells, Sydney Richard


Loder, Captain J. de Vere
Rickards, George William
Williams, Herbert G. (Croydon, S.)


Lumley, Captain Lawrence R.
Robinson, John Roland
Wills, Wilfrid D.


Mabane, William
Ropner, Colonel L.
Wilson, Lt.-Col. Sir Arnold (Hertf'd)


MacAndrew, Lieut.-Col, C. G. (Partick)
Rosbotham, Sir Thomas
Windsor-Clive, Lieut-Colonel George


MacAndrew, Capt. J. O. (Ayr)
Ross, Ronald D.
Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl


MacDonald, Rt. Hon. J. R. (Seaham)
Ross Taylor, Walter (Woodbridge)
Wise, Alfred R.


MacDonald, Malcolm (Bassetlaw)
Runge, Norah Cecil
Womersley, Walter James


McKle, John Hamilton
Russell, Hamer Field (Sheffield, B'tside)
Worthington, Dr. John V.


Maclay, Hon. Joseph Paton
Rutherford, Sir John Hugo (Liverp'l)
Young, Rt. Hon. Sir Hilton (S'v'noaks)


McLean, Major Sir Alan
Salmon, Sir Isidore



McLean, Dr. W. H. (Tradeston)
Salt, Edward W.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Macmillan, Maurice Harold
Sandeman, Sir A. N. Stewart
Sir Frederick Thomson and Lord


Magnay, Thomas
Scone, Lord
Erskine.


NOES.


Adams, D. M. (Poplar, South)
Greenwood, Rt. Hon. Arthur
Mallalieu, Edward Lancelot


Attlee, Clement Richard
Grenfell, David Rees (Glamorgan)
Maxton, James


Banfield, John William
Griffith, F. Kingsley (Middlesbro', W.)
Milner, Major James


Batey, Joseph
Groves, Thomas E.
Nathan, Major H. L.


Bevan, Aneurin (Ebbw Vale)
Grundy, Thomas W.
Owen, Major Goronwy


Brown, C. W. E. (Notts., Mansfield)
Hall, George H. (Merthyr Tydvil)
Paling, Wilfred


Buchanan, George
Hicks, Ernest George
Parkinson, John Allen


Cocks, Frederick Seymour
Holdsworth, Herbert
Pickering, Ernest H.


Cove, William G.
Jenkins, Sir William
Price, Gabriel


Cripps, Sir Stafford
Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)
Rea, Walter Russell


Curry, A. C.
Kirkwood, David
Roberta, Aled (Wrexham)


Dagger, George
Lawson, John James
Salter, Dr. Alfred


Davies, David L. (Pontypridd)
Leonard, William
Smith, Tom (Normanton)


Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)
Logan, David Gilbert
Tinker, John Joseph


Dobbie, William
Lunn, William
White, Henry Graham


Edwards, Charles
Macdonald, Gordon (Ince)
Wood, Sir Murdoch McKenzie (Banff)


Evans, David Owen (Cardigan)
McEntee, Valentine L.



Foot, Dingle (Dundee)
Maclean, Nell (Glasgow, Govan)
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Foot, Isaac (Cornwall, Bodmin)
Mainwaring, William Henry
Mr. John and Mr. D. Graham.

CLAUSE 36.—(Provision and maintenance of training courses.)

10.42 p.m.

Mr. KIRKWOOD: I beg to move, in page 31, line 41, to leave out "with the approval of the Minister," and to insert
in accordance with regulations to be made by the Minister.
This Amendment seeks to ensure that Parliament will have an opportunity of considering regulations dealing with these courses and of making objections to them if necessary. This is a very serious part of the Bill. It brings us right up against the question of the training centres and the difficulties which
the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary have experienced in finding the best method of dealing with the young men who are unemployed and particularly those who have never done any work. The question of what to do with these young men has caused serious concern and several Governments have attempted to deal with it. At present we have training centres in different parts of the country and I remember taking a deputation of engineers to the Minister of Labour in the Labour Government protesting against those centres because we were able to adduce evidence from the executive of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers to show that young men from those centres were under-cutting engineers.

Captain CROOKSHANK: On a point of Order. The hon. Gentleman appears to be raising the whole question of training centres. Is it your opinion, Sir Dennis, that we should take a general Debate now, or that we should deal with the Amendments in the regular fashion and take the general Debate on the Question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill"?

The CHAIRMAN: I am watching that point, and I think it would be to the advantage of the Committee to keep to the Amendments on the Paper and leave the general discussion of the Clause till we come to the Question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."

Mr. KIRKWOOD: I was saying that the question of these training centres has engaged the attention of several Governments, and, that being the case, it is essential that we should face up to what is implied in this Bill in this connection. We do not want the Minister to have a free hand here, and that is what the Amendment is for. We wish him to put his regulations before this House so that we may discuss the pros and cons of those regulations. As far as I understand, that is the idea of this House of Commons, that we should come together here in order to discuss things. We are supposed to be here to make our imprint on the laws of our native land. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] We on these benches have a native land. We are not like some individuals on the opposite benches that have no native land. We
come here, as I say, in order to put our imprint on the laws of our country, and that is why we are so anxious to take advantage of our rights as Members of Parliament to argue out the point here on the Floor of the House.
There is no doubt that there are not only Members of this House but there is a spirit abroad to-day with a view of not allowing us the right to give expression to our point of view. There are individuals in this House who take a delight in trying to keep us from expressing our point of view. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] Time and again we have to do it under the greatest difficulty. They are trying to do it at the moment, and we have just to do the best we can in these trying circumstances, in order to stand up not only for our own right but also for the rights of the people who have sent us here to represent them. We want through this Amendment to get the Minister to come here and put his regulations before us. With all due respect to the Minister and those who are assisting him, and the draftsmen who drafted this Bill, this is something in which we on these benches can assist them, of which we have actual experience; that it, of working with our hands. Plenty of hon. Members in this House have never worked with their hands in their lives, and it is their ambition to keep away from working with their hands. They ought, therefore, to encourage us who are, as they are always pretending to be, looking after the interests of the country first. This is something in which we can render human service, and about which they know nothing.
It is because we feel that the Minister would make a mistake; because he has no personal experience of what it is to work in a mine—[An HON. MEMBER: "Have you?"]—or in an engineering shop; I have experience of that and I look the part. I bear the marks of where I came from. Neither the Minister nor his understudy knows anything about this matter, but we do, and we know perfectly well that the kind of work in which until now the Minister of Labour and his Parliamentary Secretary have propounded for these individuals to be trained has no outlet. It is only a waste of time. They send these persons to the training centres to train them to work along certain lines. Suppose it is
engineers. They never attempt to train 25,000 unemployed engineers, and there is therefore no use in training them to be engineers. They never attempt to train them to be colliers; it is no use training them as cotton operatives, and until very recently there was no use in training them to be agricultural workers. We cannot employ them under the present regime. In every one of our key industries, a super-abundance of labour is lying idle. In every big industrial centre and in the coalfields there are tens of thousands of young men who have never worked in their lives. Only a fortnight ago I was negotiating with three of the biggest shipbuilding employers in Britain, and they agreed with me that there are thousands of young men who have finished their apprenticeship in all branches of skilled shipbuilding who will never work as shipbuilders. We have to find an outlet for them.
All these facts have been placed before the Minister of Labour. He has had the benefit of being at the Ministry before he was in complete charge, so that he has had years of experience. He has sage experience to guide him in this work. Yet at this time of day he comes forward with the suggestion that he is to be free to bring in whatever he thinks fit, and he has shown no idea that he will put into force anything that will really be worthy of this great nation. We see no indication that the Government will adopt any other method than that which they have adopted up to now—the method of drift and doing things in a haphazard, patchy fashion. If the Minister came before the House, as I suggest
in my Amendment, with the regulations for training centres, we would be able to place before the House our experience of dealing with actual facts. We see a new idea abroad, even in this House. Formerly men on every side of the House said that they did not want the unemployment allowance, but that they wanted work. Every Government since I came to the House 12 years ago and every statesman have been looking for work, but they were looking for work for the other fellow. They cannot get that work. We are producing more wealth to-day than we did before and carrying 2,000,000 unemployed——

It being Eleven of the Clock The CHAIRMAN left the Chair to make his Report to the House.

Committee report Progress; to sit again To-morrow.

KITCHEN AND REFRESHMENT ROOMS (HOUSE OF COMMONS).

Ordered,
That Mr. Savery be added to the Select Committee on Kitchen and Refreshment Rooms (House of Commons)."—[Sir F. Thomson.]

The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

ADJOURNMENT.

Resolved, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Captain Margesson.]

Adjourned accordingly at Three Minutes after Eleven o'Clock.